


Something better than revenge

by SingerOnTheRise



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Badass, But she isn't El's daughter, Chicago, F/M, Happy Ending, Hate, Hawkins - Freeform, Mike has a daughter, Mileven, Modern Era, Revenge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-04-06 08:00:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 40,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19058527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingerOnTheRise/pseuds/SingerOnTheRise
Summary: On parole after being arrested for crimes he never committed, Mike's only desire is to take revenge on the great CEO Martin Brenner and that seems very close to being realized when Kali Prasad comes into his life inviting him to be part of his revenge club. However, along with Kali, also appears in his life a beautiful woman dubbed as Eleven and slowly she begins to steal his heart and make him rethink if revenge is really the only way he wants to go.Love or hate? The two feelings were too great to coexist and Mike would have to choose between one of them at some point.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Look who’s here in less than a week, folks! Hello!  
> New history. The idea came to me as I watched Ant-Man/ Ant-Man and the Wasp. Simply BUM popped into my head and I just started writing. In fact, the only idea I had was: what if Mike had a daughter (unique resemblance to Scott Lang)? What if he was unjustly imprisoned? What if he went crazy for revenge? The ideas just started to come up and I could not do anything but put them out.
> 
> I hope you like it.  
>  XOXOX

 

 

 

**_He honestly should_** have realized something wrong was coming up on the horizon and fast approaching.

Michael Wheeler had never been a lucky person - childhood summed up by the pursuit of bullies, disastrous adolescence and not very exciting adult life. Basically? If something bad had to happen, it would happen to him. Then, after three months of complete calm, of course, something had to happen to put his luck back on the axes.

It all begins when their boss asks for his and Dustin's presence in the presidential hall. Of course, this is by no means auspicious in every possible way, but they obey orders as good officials they are - or simply because they have no choice except to obey orders since that was essentially their function: to obey orders. Looking good, it was not a very different function from that of children: a child had to obey the parents and an adult to his boss.

Dustin, who walked awkwardly in front of him and made his way through the aisles of unoccupied employees and drinking coffee, barely seemed to be coping with his nervousness. Mike could not blame him, could he? I mean, being called in the boss's office was not a very exciting thing, and there was still the fact that none of them, or any of the staff, if not the secretary, had ever had direct contact with the boss. It was a mystery, only being seen in high-class magazines of moneyed people, a world that did not fit Mike even on magazine pages.

Martin Brenner, a thin man in expensive clothes, carefully styled white hair, rich as hell, had never interacted directly with any of his staff. The man was a mystery in personality. He spent the whole day in his office, coordinating meetings with other bosses and reviewing the company's actions; practically a ghost.

Just like anywhere with humans and their natural curiosity, there were rumors about him. Some said things about him being one of America's most wanted thugs and being disguised under various plastic surgeries, others were saying that he did not exist and that they were working for an enemy company in disguise. They were blatantly boring in general, but Mike could not stop thinking about it. He had always had a fertile imagination, that was true, and that imagination tended to turn into uncontrollable paranoia.

"Man" Dustin stops walking and looks at him. "I'll blame myself, okay? I say it was my fault. You can't lose this job at all."

He felt momentarily flattered by it, but that feeling soon ended because they are not in high school and one cannot stand guilty for the other. If he had to be fired, he would be and wouldn't blame his friend.

"And you don't need this job?" He smiled sideways, a little disdainful. "Is your landlord now going to let you live in the apartment for free?"

"No, of course, old Rigby will not do that, but..." Dustin hesitates a little, that old pity and caution that Mike is already accustomed to appearing in his blue eyes. "But... Oh, man, you know what it is! You get it!"

"Oh, yes, I understood very well!" He frowned angrily. "That's because I have Liv, right?"

And that's one of the parts of Mike's life that, with luck or no luck, he definitely hates. The pity of the people. It was not like they needed the pity of them, shit! It was all right in their life (they were healthy, good financial conditions and living a cozy life in the best possible way) and no one needed to have that damn expression.

Besides, Mike would never understand that. Despite the occasional problems and headaches that erupted, Liv had been a... a gift in his life and that was undeniable. The greatest joy of all, the only person who could improve his mood on sad days, so why did people insist on treating their lives as something bad and pitiful?

He took a deep breath, trying to reconcile his anger with the little sanity that still lingered in his head. Dustin did not deserve a nervous breakdown, especially since, of all people, he was probably the one who had the best intentions when trying to preserve Mike and his little family.

"Listen, man." He paused, searching for the right words and would certainly not hurt his friend's feelings. "Thank you for caring about us, I'm appreciative that and I know that Liv will too, but... don't do that, okay? We don't even know what we’re here for, so please stop anticipating everything and try to relax. It will be all right. "

Dustin nods positively, even though he doesn't seem very confident. To be frank, Mike himself doesn't feel confident about anything at all, but what to do? He is a grown man and hiding under the bed cannot be one of his options anymore.

They walk for a while longer through the corridors of the company, both ignoring the looks of vulture that the companions of work who were having a coffee launched to them. The truth is that everyone there wanted them to be fired and had never hidden it. Mike and Dustin were the company's newest IT analysts on both hiring and age, so somehow the other employees saw them as enemies - a person who potentially took over their jobs after their old-age layoffs or something. The adult world, Mike had realized on his own and without the supposed support that parents should give, was a scary place where people were left wishing the worst for the others.

The door of the boss’s room is completely made of glass, just like the walls. It's a magnificent sight, but Mike is too impacted by the boss's vision to pay attention to this or any part of the decor of the environment. Fear of dismissal running through his veins - fear of losing the only way to keep himself and Liv in good condition, but no way would he use that at his disposal to prevent a possible dismissal. Liv was not a trump card.

"It's going to be all right," Dustin reassured himself. "No nerve syncopation, please."

Dustin nods positively and they both enter the room together, struggling to keep their legs working properly and take the two of them to the chairs arranged before the big boss.

Both are mentally prepared for what awaits them: a man with a closed-eyed, bad-faced, visibly irritated, and very likely will give them a scold and dismiss them. However, it is far from what they find.

Brenner is sitting comfortably at his company's chair-table, sympathetic face smiling at them with a kindness that Mike had certainly never received from someone of such a high position. Maybe they wouldn't get fired after all, would they?

"Good evening, Sirs." The big boss smiles at them, elbows resting on the papers and, consequently, on the glass table. "Michael Wheeler and Dustin Henderson, am I right? I appreciate the agility with which you came to meet me, dear Sirs."

Mike tilts his head a little, yellow smile toward the boss. There was something in the tone of the white-haired man, something in that velvet that left him with the hairs on the back of his neck.

"Good evening, Sir." He greeted and continued right after Dustin did the same. "You wanted to talk to us, right, Sir? How can we be useful?"

"How polite, dear Mr. Wheeler, and that is essentially what I..."

" _Please don't fire Mike!_ " Dustin interrupts the man, white joints with the amount of force he deposited as he squeezed his own knees. "He has a daughter and he needs that job a lot!"

_Dear God,_ Mike thinks to himself, w _hy don't I feel surprised by that?_ He shrank back in his chair, wanting more than ever to disappear from the face of the earth and the curious blue eyes of Martin Brenner.

It was not that Mike was ashamed of Liv's existence or wanted to hide her from people, he just did not like to go around exposing his daughter to anyone. She was too small, too fragile, and as long as he could protect his little baby girl he would do it-moreover, he'd just have unwanted attention on her.

Liv had not been planned, not at all, but she was still the joy of his life, and it would certainly be her mother's joy too if she had not died in childbirth. She was an angel and also the brake on his life because, because of her, he refrained from doing nonsense and other things that might occasionally spoil her future. No. Liv's future and joy was the only thing that mattered.

The sparkle in Brenner's eyes is not the usual glow of pity that people used to show when they learn that a twenty-three-year-old guy has a daughter (and who creates her by himself); is something definitely different and that he, at the moment, cannot identify.

"Oh!" Brenner talks with fun. "Interesting to know that, Mr. Henderson, but I did not request you here to dismiss you."

"Not?" Dustin repeats, sounding like a disoriented child.

"Absolutely not." The man turns to Mike, a friendly smile on his wrinkled face. "You were a very young father, uh, Mr. Wheeler? Are you still married to your wife?"

"No, I'm not married, neither separated. My daughter's mother died." He cleared his throat, yearning to take his personal life out of focus. It did not make him feel good to hear Brenner talking about his little one. "Can you, sir, get right to the point? Uhn... Me and my friend... Colleague, we're a little anxious, Sir."

Martin Brenner's smile grows tenfold, and in Mike's memoirs, images of high school begin to emerge, popular girls, approaching him with an inviting smile when they want him to do the American history work for them.

It was just good old paranoia, that's what Mike insisted on trying to convince himself as the boss rummaged through a small pile of papers and separated them into two piles. There was nothing wrong with Martin Brenner, the bad feelings that invaded Mike's being were just remnants of the bad relationships he had with other older people.

_ (His parents had not been very loving or present, now resurfacing to criticize the way he raised Liv, and Cecy's parents had also not been very receptive to the man who had impregnated their precious daughter) _

"don't worry so much, Mr. Wheeler, I have good news for you." He arranges the small stacks of papers before Dustin and Mike, still looking nice. "Or don't you think it's good news to get a promotion?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Dustin look like someone who choked on the biggest marshmallow of all, such excitement was his. That same reaction doesn't fall on Mike. Naturally suspicious, he picked up the papers and began to evaluate every word that was written there - he was not a genius of the formalities of a company, always tied to the technological world and to everything that could be done behind the screen of a computer; however, he too was not obtuse enough not to understand even seventy percent of what was written there.

Brenner doesn't seem to like much about his act of trying to read the paperwork instead of following Dustin's example and signing everything that had to be signed.

"Most of these pages are just insignificant formalities, Mr. Wheeler." He takes the papers from Mike's hands to direct them on the last page. "Nothing you need to bother with your head."

"I don't understand... Why are we getting a raise? What have we done?" Mike gets back the papers, the dotted line attracting all his attention and asking to be signed.

"Because you are great employees." Brenner pushes an ink pen into his hands, something Mike found to be extinct from the face of the earth. "You were the employees who, adding, in the last four months more yielded me in production, then nothing more than reasonable receive an increase."

He nodded, slightly swaying with that statement. He and Dustin had definitely given their blood to Brenner Technologies Industry in recent months - countless overtime, working on projects until four o'clock in the morning, several times having to work without food and confined to a hard chair for ten straight hours.

Yes, they deserved what Martin Brenner was offering them. Besides, there was no way for a man as distinguished as Brenner to do something bad for them, for example, to sign obscure documents or something.

He placed the pen on the paper and, with sweaty hands, signed the name on the dotted line. The name Michael Edward Wheeler stood out on the white sheet, the blue paint almost looking fluorescent.

"Very good, Sirs." Brenner smiles at them, the kindness gradually diminishing. "Thank you for your cooperation today, that was very important, believe me. Your gratification will probably appear even today, tonight, be prepared. I think that's all, you're excused."

The last image that Mike has of Martin Brenner before leaving the room is his taking the cell phone and dialing some numbers that by far is impossible to identify. The president and founder of the company seem content with himself, absolutely in triumph. Strange, who's happy to give employees a raise?

"Can you believe it, man?" Dustin exclaims as soon as they set foot outside the company, face as smiling as the day Stacey accidentally took his hand. "We got a promotion! I told you this company would be a great place to work."

"Yeah, right?" He looked one last time at the well-built monument that was the Brenner Technologies Industry building, the same bad feeling coming back. "Listen, don't you want to come to dinner at my house? Liv misses you."

"Mexican food, ice cream, and some Eggos?" He nodded positively. Liv could eat bullshit for one night, could not she? It was a special day. Then she would return to her routine diet. "Oh, man, I'm totally in!"

He laughed, relaxed. Finally, one more day was over and nothing had gone wrong for him; a relief. It seems like his luck was improving after all.

* * *

 

 

"Dad!"

As always, Mike feels his daughter before he even sees her. Liv collides harshly against his knees, small arms wrapping around his leg in an iron hug that was too strong for a girl in her age. It takes a few seconds like this until she pulls away and holds her arms up, demanding to be hoisted into her father's arms - something Mike does willingly.

Mike hugged Liv's body against him, nose buried in her dark hair, taking advantage of the closeness and calm she carried. God, if he could ever let her go, would just stay there, squeezing her against him until the world stopped spinning.

"Hey, baby girl." He adjusted her weight, realizing how heavy she was beginning to get. "I guess that means you missed it, uh?"

"So muuuch" The girl exclaims in her thin sweet voice.

"I guess I missed you too. I think we're even."

"That’s right, Dad!"

Liv lets out a loud chuckle that echoes throughout the apartment and that, in addition to her own father, captivates the other viewers of the scene and forces them to have complacent smiles on their lips.

Raising Liv alone and everything else, Mike sometimes thinks he is exaggerating when he thinks he could not bear to live away from her - his classic complex, the fear of losing one of the only people who truly love him back. Liv is all he has in life; she is a whole world inside a small person still full of innocence and far from being corrupted.

He adjusted his daughter's body against him, so that he could get a full view of the little toy-cluttered apartment and the docile lady who took care of her after the preschool.

"Thank you for taking care of her, Mrs. Clayne." He looked directly into the Lady's eyes, she features already familiar to him. "I hope she did not give too much trouble."

"That little princess? Of course not, my dear. No trouble. She's an angel."

The older woman wiggles from her seat and forwards to Mike and Liv, wrinkled hands dividing between cluttering his hair and caressing hers.

"Even little angels can do trouble," Mike answered in a good mood, knowing how Liv could fool with that cute little face and then destroy and set fire to the house. "Listen, about your payment..."

"No, dear, we'll talk about this later. Take care of your girl."

"All right, Mrs. Clayne." He placed Liv on the ground, grinning enormously as the little girl staggered away from him and threw herself against Dustin's legs. "Have a good night, then."

He accompanied the woman to the exit of the apartment, following one of several teachings of good conduct that the owner of a house should have according to Karen Wheeler.

"Goodnight, sweetheart." The Lady smiles at him, kind face wrinkling with a maternal smile. "See you tomorrow, the usual time, right?"

He nodded, watching the Lady walk down the hall. Mrs. Clayne was a good person, one of the best people Mike had ever known in his adult life, and that was why he could not understand the bad feeling that came over him as he watched her walk away. A bad feeling, a bad feeling, almost like what he felt when his father scolded him on a low note, when the bullies beat him or, worse when Liv's mother died. It was a familiar feeling, but far from pleasing him.

He slammed the door shut, trying to ease the tension with that act.

"Is there a problem, Mike?" Dustin asks, splitting up between tossing his friend a provocative smile and sitting down with a shaken Liv at the dinner table. "Did Mrs. Clayne give you an ear jerk?"

He forced a laugh, watching with attentive eyes as Liv curiously nudged a plate of guacamole. She looked so innocent that Mike felt like stopping time to prevent the onset of adolescence and adulthood (boyfriends).

"That lady is practically my grandmother and grandmothers don't pull the ears of their grandchildren." He approached Liv, taking the chair next to which she had climbed to sit down. "Did you wash your hands, little one?"

"Yes, sir!" She tapped her forehead, an expression of seriousness.

"Where did you learn this?" The answer comes from the giggles that emerge from the seat next to theirs, from Dustin. "Never mind."

"Your daughter has a great sense of humor."

"And you're a bad influence." He picked up a taco meal and threw it toward Dustin. "Let's have dinner soon, shall we? We have a child who needs to be in bed by seven o’clock."

But, as always, this is not exactly what happens. Liv is known to have too much energy in her little body and to know how to use the cuteness with which she was born endowed in her favor, so it is not a big surprise when she bends it with her puppy eyes and can change her schedule of sleeping for eight hours. A little very cute mercenary.

Liv, already clad in her teddy-bear pajamas, grunts a little as she lies on the bed, her eyes glittering and indicating the amount of energy that still needs to be spent.

"I'm not sleepy, Dad." She claims as she sits beneath the covers, her arms wrapped around the yellow rabbit she had won on her two-year birthday. "Can I stay and watch some more movies?"

"I don't think so, baby girl." He sat down beside her bed, the coldness of the floor causing little shivers and making him think about the possibility of buying a carpet. "What do you think of a story before bed?"

"Cool! I want the one about the warrior princess."

Despite her latent excitement, Liv sleeps in less than twenty minutes of history, and even having to be a good host and keep company with Dustin, Mike takes some time to watch his daughter. His father never read stories or spent time with his children (except when he took them to work to brag about something to his colleagues), so Mike struggled to be the complete opposite of this, the fear of becoming Ted Wheeler always haunting him.

Liv was just a ball of sleep in the middle of the covers, so small that she already gave hints that her adult height wouldn't exceed 1.57 as an adult. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in a lifetime and was definitely not yet ready to think about the day when she would be independent and go to college (which had once been a great time for him during adolescence).

He patted Liv's mass of black hair.

"Never grow up, baby."

She sighs in her sleep, flushed cheeks and small red lips curl into a dreamy smile.

"Never leave me, Daddy."

"I'll never do that." He kissed her head lengthy. "Who's my favorite little girl?"

"I am?"

"That’s right. Good night, little one."

It almost seems like the night will end well, that nothing bad will happen - that's until the doorbell of the apartment plays closely and announces the beginning of the path of doom.

Dustin also seems to be feeling something bad coming on as he stands before the door, fingers hanging thoughtfully over the doorknob as he leans forward slightly and tries to get a preview of what awaits them outside. His expression is grave as it has never been before, not even when Troy Harrington was chasing him at middle school.

"If you don't open the door you'll never know who's behind it." He commented with forced lightness, shoving his friend aside and turning the key to open the door.

"I don't think it's a good idea to open the door, Mike. It's too late. It can't be any good."

"Stop being loose! It could be Mrs. Clayne or the janitor."

_(_ ** _Spoiler:_** _it was not Mrs. Clayne or the janitor of the building)_

Behind the door were two men Mike could swear he'd never seen before in his life. Cops. A tall, frowning man, as thin as the caricatures out there of death, and the other chubby and cheeky pink cheeks, though he did not look less frowning.

What the hell were two cops wanting knocking on his front door?

He straightened his posture, shoulders straighter and nose steeper. Years of bullying taught him that the tactic was not to look like prey.

"Good evening." He glanced between the two policemen. "What can I do for you?"

The two men also straighten up so that their guns are more visible under the hallway lights.

"Michael Wheeler?" He nodded hesitantly and watched the man turn to Dustin. "Dustin Henderson?"

"Myself, is there a problem?"

A brief exchange of cops' smiles and that smiles are all Mike can see before he is pushed against the wall and handcuffed.

"All right, the process is as follows, the standard that you should already know: You have the right to remain silent so that nothing is used as an aggravator. Please don't resist.”

"What the fuck is that?" Dustin, face pressed hard against the wall, screams at the top of his lungs. "We did not do anything!"

"Everyone always says that!"

"No, we did not do anything! You have nothing against us." Mike says trying to escape the squeeze of the chubby cop who is surprisingly strong. "Please..."

"THAT YOU ARE DOING IS ABUSE OF POWER!"

" _ Dad _ ?"

All the agitation dies (the cops stop squeezing them aggressively and Dustin freezes in their curses) and everyone looks into the center of the living room, where Liv is sadly desolate with her bunny and excessively large pajamas.

This could not be happening.

Incredibly, Liv is the first to come out of her paralysis. Weeping furiously, Mike's daughter runs and starts to kick the cop who holds him.

“DON’T TOUCH MY DAD! BAD MAN! LEAVE MY DAD ALONE!”

"Liv, baby..."

"LEAVE MY DAD!"

To the horror of Mike and Dustin, the cop does exactly what is expected of a heartless person: he kicks Liv away from himself, consequently causing the girl to fall on her butt on the floor screaming.

Mike's heart breaks in half with his daughter's desperate cries, making it worse when she holds her arms out and begs for his lap and he can't grant her such a desire because he is too busy handcuffed.

"My daughter!" He growled at the policeman, looking red. "You kicked my daughter!"

"She was trying to stop me from doing my job!"

"SHE’S A CHILD, YOUR ASSHOLE!"

Attracted by the screaming, Mrs. Clayne and her bad-faced husband come up the end of the hall to find out what's going on.

"Mike, dear, what...?"

He shook his head, with no explanation in mind-what could he say, after all?

"Can you stay with Liv for a little longer?" Asked looking wickedly at the policeman and wondered what it would be like to push him into a lane full of cars. "Call for... Call my mother. My sister. She'll know what to do with Liv, the number is on the agenda on the table."

"You can leave it, dear." The Lady passes through him like a hurricane, grabbing Liv from the ground and babbling. "Shhh, baby, it's going to be okay."

"MY DAD, MY DAD..."

Before being forced out of the house, the last sight Mike has is Liv's, a red face, wet with tears and gaping mouth in a childish cry of despair, struggling against Mrs. Clayne's arms and trying to reach him.

This is a vision that will plague him for many years. This is also the last view he will have of Liv for a long time.

 

* * *

 

 

Fraud, bribery, misappropriation and money laundering, cybercrime and ideological falsehood - these were the crimes for which they were being unduly accused.

He leaned his head against the grating of the cell, a feeling of coldness rising through his stomach and slowly becoming something persistent, hard to ignore.

"I don't know where these shit came from, but none of them are true." He punched the cell grid, boiling hate inside. "Please, I have a daughter. She needs me."

The two policemen were replaced by an imposing man in an expensive suit, long nose, and shiny gel hair. The delegate, perhaps? Most likely to judge the way he behaved.

The delegate stops playing the papers and grins his teeth when Mike mentions his daughter.

"You don't know why you're here, huh? Innocent as usual. Well, Dr. Martin Brenner doesn't agree with that. "

This shakes Dustin who, emerging from his place of depression in the corner of the cell, runs to stay side by side with Mike.

"What about Dr. Brenner?"

The delegate's teeth are impossibly larger.

"It was he who denounced them, a great man, this one, always within the law."

The two men behind bars grinned, their eyes were wide with information. As...? Why the hell would Brenner do that to them? I mean, they had not done anything close to the accusations, they had never interacted with the boss before the day of ...

The truth comes to him as the water comes to someone who is at sea, drowning because they don't know how to swim. Brenner had made them sign a strange paper with a strange excuse about a supposed salary increase, so he, who was known to have built his technological empire never giving a salary increase to the employees.  had armed Mike and Dustin for the two stupid people to sign a document that would likely lead them to blame for the charges being made.

The bastard had been armed so that two idiots could assume the guilt that belonged to him. He shook the iron bars of the cell violently, a cry of indignation rising in his throat. No, that could not be happening to him and Dustin!

"What...?" Dustin says slowly, probably not yet fixed in the mind.

He turned to his friend and for a moment it seemed that he was seeing little Dustin Henderson, toothless and desolate, before him again.

"He's set us up, man. Our boss, Martin Brenner, has set us up." He laid a hand on the shoulder of his best childhood friend. "You understand that? He's armed for us. Now it's easy to understand why he has this whole fortune."

"But... Why would he do that to us?"

"Because he's an asshole!!" He threw himself against the bars again, the sound of the phone ringing further inflaming his hatred. "I want to talk to this Martin son of a bitch Brenner! I'm going to make that fucking bastard take the blame for what he did!"

Ignoring his screams, the sheriff giggles and picks up the phone. There is a brief, low conversation, all to the sounds of Mike's screams, and when the call finally ends, the fucking sheriff looks happier than ever.

"Lucky you, boy, because Mr. Brenner is here to talk to you." The man rises from his place behind the table and walks slowly toward the door. "Behave yourself."

The delegate Mike is already very displeased and leaves. There is a brief conversation outside, whispered words that most seem to be hissing, until the door is opened again and Martin Brenner emerges.

Expensive suit, well-groomed white hair, wrinkled face, and icy eyes - the same man who had been with them earlier in the morning, but somehow he was someone else altogether. Now the cover of the dirt had been removed and everything was visible so that the two could see how rotten he was. The smile... and before there were doubts, now she just did not exist anymore. Martin Brenner's smile delivered what he had done, armed for them and how confident he felt about it. There was no remorse in his features, not even close to that.

What kind of person fucked up the lives of two other people and felt no remorse? Damn, he knew Mike had a daughter, and he probably knew a lot more than that. So even then, the little shit had decided to fuck with his life.

"Good evening, gentlemen, enjoying your stay?"

He walks lazily near the cell, taking advantage of the fact that there were no prisoners or witnesses to display his true face.

"You did it for us!" He pressed himself against the bars, trying to get close enough to grab Brenner. "WHY DID YOU DO THAT FUCK ?!"

Brenner stops walking and stares at them, icy eyes sparkling with amusement.

"Why should not I do that?" He questions with elegant indulgence. "Did you really think I'd take the blame? God, you're so naive!"

"We did not do anything!" Dustin whimpers and Mike knows his friend enough to know he's on the verge of crying.

"Of course not, Mr. Henderson, you don't have intelligence enough for that." The man lets out a strange kind of laughter. "Putting the blame on you was so easy, it's always easy, a proposal to increase, a signature of a shameful and ready! I am no longer to blame for anything."

Mike grunts and then, too furious to reason, tries to reach Brenner. What he wants is to squeak, skin, and do whatever would cause the goddamn shit to ache.

"Easy, Mr. Wheeler."

"EASY? I CREATE MY DAUGHTER ALONE, WITHOUT THE HELP OF NOBODY AND YOU TELL ME TO BE EASY? FOR THE HELL WITH THAT! I AM BOUND AND MY DAUGHTER IS GOD KNOWS THERE WHERE ASTOUNDED LIKE NEVER!”

"Well, I'm sorry for you, but I really will not take the blame." The man smiles cunningly, reminding him very much of Alice's cat in Wonderland. "And what about your daughter... Well, I think it would be interesting if you could control your tongue if you want to find her in good condition when you leave here in... Ten years."

Brenner slips both hands into the pockets of his tailored pants and begins to head toward the exit.

Oh no! He will not get out of that police shit before he hears everything that was stuck in Mike's throat. He had to hear everything, that bastard motherfucker.

"YOU WILL PAY ME, YOUR SON OF THE BITCH! WILL PAY ME EXPENSIVE! THAT WILL NOT REMAIN LIKE THIS!!" Mike screamed at everything she was talking about, not caring if her throat would get sore or without a voice later. "I'LL MAKE YOU PAY FOR WHAT YOU'RE DOING WITH PEOPLE! I'LL GET IT BACK."

Brenner pauses at the exit door, slender fingers playing irreverently with the doorknob.

"Everyone says that, Mr. Wheeler." He opens the door. "Everyone always promises that. Good luck with your revenge."

The screams erupt out of Mike's chest as soon as Brenner leaves her field of vision they can only be described as animalistic. He doesn't know, will hear it through Dustin's mouth in the future, but it sounds like a real wounded animal, and frankly? That's how he feels. Like an animal wounded and betrayed. His mother used to say that there was one thing in the universe that was called bad karma and good karma - if you did something bad, bad karma would come into action and would repay twice as bad and if something good was done, good karma would do your thing work and give something good. Mike had done nothing bad, absolutely nothing, so why was the universe doing this to him?

This thing of good karma and bad karma was nonsense! The universe did not avenge or did good things and if the universe did not do that it would do it itself.

Mike had never been a vengeful person, but the hatred and rage boiling inside him said it was time to change that concept. He was going to take revenge on Martin Brenner, he was going to do that shit pay dearly for the pain and destruction he was causing. Martin Fucking Brenner would get what he deserved and no matter how long it took.

"I promise, Martin Brenner," He whispered quietly to himself. "I'm going to get you off this pedestal. I'll take revenge on you, I promise."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. And that's how starts the game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike deals with the consequences of being unjustly imprisoned (one of these consequences being his parents taking custody of his daughter) and gets to choose whether or not to join revenge against Martin Brenner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys!
> 
> Okay, let me be frank with you: I really did not expect the reaction to this AU. Seriously. 11 kudos and 1 comment? Totally beyond my imagination. Not that I'm not happy. I'm happy. I just ... I'm ecstatic, you know? I'm surprised, but also happy. Thank you for this wonderful reception.
> 
> Is not the new Stranger Things poster just a work of art? God, the way they put Mike's hair slightly messy (a Finn Wolfhard style). And the stills that left? MadMax and El seeing something at Hawkins's mall, the boys looking worried for something ... ow! it only fueled my anxiety.
> 
> I hope you like it.

 

 

He pulled the hood over his head, paranoid that anyone could recognize him and ruin his disguise. He had not set foot in that little town since graduation, having changed a lot from the nerd boy he was until he became the current him, but... But that fuck was Hawkins, was not it? There was always the possibility that some stupid ex-schoolmate or some family friend might come and acknowledge him.

He looked around the pavilion of the city's mall, uneasy. Was it his impression or were people beginning to stare at him? No, no! It was his impression. It was just the good and old paranoia coming into action again and with full force. To relieve the tension, he began to walk and pretend to evaluate the pieces of clothing displayed in the windows. Triplicated price clothing that had long since slipped out of Chicago's fashion scene.

He leaned a little on one of the windows, eyes half closed as he watched a figure behind him. A small, redheaded woman standing just a few feet away from him. Had he ever seen that woman somewhere or was it once again paranoia? No, he definitely had seen her some... many times in the last few days. She was a familiar figure, but not in the good sense of the familiar. She was following him.

Why is she following him?

_"Dad?"_

"Mikey?"

He turned his gaze to the two figures whose approach he had not heard - a blonde teen chewing gum and a child with hair as black as his, all his attention and heart going toward the younger of the two.

"Hey, Liv." He fell to his knees and felt refreshed when the child threw himself into his arms without hesitation. "I missed you, sweetheart."

"I felt it too, Dad." The little girl sniffs against the hollow of his neck, tightening her grip indicating she is not about to let go him anytime soon. "When do I go home? I don't want to stay at Grandma's anymore. She says bad things about you.”

His heart sank a few inches into the rib cage, eyes starting to burn. He did not need to ask about what his mother was talking about, he knew very well who Karen Wheeler was and how much damage she could do both soberly and under the effect of her expensive wines.

For some reason that Mike had never quite understood, he had always been rejected by his mother and father - unworthy of merit, excluded from social events, or simply overlooked in family photos - then there was simply any way to wait for the better coming from his parents, never. Holly was the only one to be saved from this.bNancy was either, or at least he thought so since she had proved to be a rat.

"Soon, Liv, I'm working on it." He lifted his daughter into her lap, inhaling her scent and wrinkling her nose to the scent. "Are you smelling Chanel No. 5, Olivia?

Liv murmurs thoughtfully against his neck but gives no concrete answer, which forces him to turn to his younger sister for answers. Holly, tall and thin, dressed in cheerleader clothes, stares at him with a small smile on her side.

"Chanel No. 5, sure. **She** did it to me, remember?" She looks around, blue eyes glowing with caution. "We should get out of here, brother. Mom let me out with Liv easy, and that's very strange."

Holly, who knew Hawkins's mall as no one else, guides him through Hawkins shopping malls with ease until they find themselves in a sort of completely sports - a place where Karen Wheeler could never appear by minor chance.

"You know," Holly comments casually, her hands resting on her almost bare waist, barely covered by the local school cheerleader's outfits. "A strange redheaded woman showed up at home these days, she was looking for you."

Mike choked on the spittle, the woman a few minutes ago came into his mind.

"What she wanted, Holly?" He squeezed Liv against himself, rocking her body gently from side to side to keep his thoughts away from the conversation.

"I don't know, Mikey... she just asked for you, you know? She asked if we knew anything about your whereabouts. "

"And you?"

"You know that, don't you?" His little sister stares at him with his pious blue eyes. She likes it as much as he does. "Mom just freaked out. She just did not yell at the woman ‘cause the neighbors would listen, but kicked her out immediately."

He nodded thoughtfully, repudiating himself for constructing a mental image of his mother yelling at the woman. Imagining his mother's reactions was something out of the world in which they had played him.

Caressed Liv's hair, enjoying the time he had to be at her side. The little contact Mike had with his daughter was all about it, the little getaways organized by Holly, his little sister, who piously allowed a rapport between them - if it depended on any other member of their family, that would never happen. Holly was the only person there, who disliked the idea of separating Mike from Liv.

"How are you, Mikey?" Holly asks softly, small hand held up to pull hair out of her older brother's eyes. "Are you ok?"

He tried to smile and convey positivity, thoughts about the club where he worked, and the tiny apartment he shared with Dustin - Holly did not need to know about it, not when her teenage problems were more eminent.

"All okay, Holly Doll." His sister lunged at him and Liv at the mention of her childhood nickname, arms tight around them. "Hey." He laughed with that affection show. "What is it? As I recall you never really liked me to hug you."

"I'm just glad you're okay, you're not hurt or depressed. I don't like you to be sad." Holly tightens the grip around the two, making Liv mutter in consequence. "You're a really cool brother. I miss you."

"Yeah, I miss you too, blondie."

Holly sniffs audibly.

"Mom's going to regret what she's doing, Dad and Nancy too. Everyone will realize that you're right."

Not wanting to discourage the one person who believes in him, he was silent, just enjoying the rare family moment. There is no universal way or entity that can make him reconcile with his parents, and especially, with Nancy. She had betrayed him, regardless of her intentions.

"Can I tell you a secret?" His sister asks what Mike knows about being rhetorical. "You look really handsome. Totally hot. You're totally no longer a nerd."

Laughing more in amusement than in believing her words, he turned his gaze to the vague reflection provided by the window in which they stopped. The guy who was there was certainly not the Mike he had imagined or wanted to be when he was a child - sloppy clothes fit the new job (jeans, regular t-shirt, hoodie and denim jacket) and messy hair not to be the subject of jokes bland of the club's customers. Very away from all the planning, he had for himself.

Mike's laughter dies on his lips when, still analyzing his own reflection, for the second time that day he sees something undesirable. A different kind of undesirable, this time bearer of blond hair well aligned and an expensive suit that only well-born and born to display would use. The person is approaching quickly, leaving without options or much more time to enjoy the presence of Liv. The visit was over and the next one, from that moment on, had an indefinite date. Maybe in a week, in a month, or in next coming year, who knows when Holly would be able to escape with Liv again?

He hugged his daughter and younger sister forcefully, anticipating the separation and what it would be to be alone again.

Nancy in front of them imposingly, hand resting on the waist while evaluating them with what appears to be exhaustion. No bit of pity. No older sister's sentimental breach that she's going to pick up or support. Nancy's support was all with their mother, it was always like this and wouldn't change even if the mall roof fell on her head (which wouldn't be a bad idea, by the way).

"Michael, you know you can't see Olivia." She speaks sternly, more than ever before, resembling her mother. "And you, Holland Wheeler, Mom will not be happy to know about it. Not really."

Holly walks away from him and Mike takes advantage of squeezing Liv's head against his own chest, a desperate attempt to stifle any uncivilized conversation that would happen.

"Fuck you, Nance! What are you doing here, by the way? Should not you be in your fucking office? Wow, I'm Nancy Wheeler! I’m a lawyer, kneel down before me." The younger of the Wheeler brothers mock the older one. Holly always had some kind of protective spirit with him. "Did Mom's watchdog come over already?!"

"Holly!" Nancy shrieks horrified. "What is this behavior ?!"

"Why can't you leave Mike alone? Mike never did anything wrong."

"Well, the Chicago police department disagrees with that."

As much as it hurts, however much he knows that doing so will end up anticipating the separation of his daughter, Mike decides it's time to interfere. As hateful as Nancy might have been with him, she loved Holly and cared for Liv, so consequently, she did not deserve to be going through all that vexation.

Swinging his body lightly to maintain her daughter's calmness, he settled between his two sisters, supporting a relieving hand on the younger sister's shoulder and also the most adept at physical attacks since the age of four (where in one memorable episode she bit Nancy at point of gushing blood).

“Holly Doll” Stared into the teenager's blue orbs, trying to make her rationale. "No fights, okay? Not worth it."

Mike ignores Nancy's indignant noise, resisting the urge to ask if anyone was listening to an annoying bug busting (a childish attitude, in fact, that should not happen in front of Liv).

"But, Mikey, she's being a total bitch and you know it!"

"I know that, Holly, but this is with me and not with you, don't set up fights for me.” He pulled his younger sister into the last hug, his heart tightening as he was pulling away from her and about to part with his daughter. "Take care of Liv, okay? I trust you."

"I'll take care, Mikey. I love you."

“I love you too, blondie.”

Dealing with Holly's pout was ten thousand times easier than dealing with Liv who, with her large eyes and angelic face, made anyone's heart tear at the least of her sobs.

She hiccups, high enough to catch the attention of the shopper's patrons as her father tries to force her arms away from his neck. Stubborn, genetic inheritance of both parents, the girl tightens her arms even more tightly, and, to top it all, she ties her legs covered by black socks around his waist. Definitely uncooperative and willing to leave - Mike did not blame her; he had already lived in the house she was living now, and frankly, that was the same reaction he had when his mother came to pick him up at Grandma Donna's house.

Feeling like a hormonal teenager and not like a grown man, insistent tears pop up in Mike's eyes at the sound of Liv's moans. He was never an example of a firm person, always given to sentimentality. His mind can’t stop running back to the last night with his daughter, to the desperate cries she gave him...

"Olivia," Nancy rushes, earning from Mike a look she elegantly pretends not to notice. "We need to go home. Grandma's going to buy you a brand-new doll, remember she promised you that?"

He rolled her eyes. Of course, they would try to buy his daughter with expensive things.

"I don't want to! I want to stay with my Dad!"

"Olivia..." The older blonde snaps impatiently.

"Do not use that tone with my daughter, Nancy, save it for when you have your own children!" He growled protectively, retreating a few steps and then crouched, hoping this would be some encouragement for Liv. "Honey? I guess I have to go."

"No! You can't go. Do not you love me anymore, Dad?"

Emotional as it was, Mike was going to cry sometime that day, probably later, on the way back to Chicago, but at the moment doing it was out of the question - it would only serve to scare Liv and reaffirm her behavior.

Mike shook his head in disbelief at his daughter's questioning and continued to do so until he was sure that when he opened his mouth he wouldn't keep company her in tears.

"Of course I love you, Liv, I love you more than anything in this world. I will never abandon you, never, and never leave you at your grandparents' house if you had another choice." He buried his face against the mass of black hair that adorned the girl's head. "But I don't have any choice, sweet. We're going to live together again, Liv, I swear I'm working on it, but you need to be patient, baby, and believe me.

"When, Dad?"

"I... I don't know, my dear, I can't tell you a date, I just know it's going to happen, I promise."

Slowly, Liv's arms loosened until they completely abandoned his neck. She moves a few inches away from his gaze, her eyes glistening with pure innocence and perhaps a little bit of hurt.

"Why do you have to go? Why are not things like they were before?"

"I... I don't know, sweet." He kissed her forehead, taking a few more seconds in the act. "Who's my favorite little girl?" He asked, hopeful that this might lessen his daughter's dismay.

"I?"

Okay, maybe the plan did not work so well.

"Yeah, It's you, honey." He brushed the fringe out of her eyes, a small part of his mind raising the why of not cutting her hair if it was visibly uncomfortable. "I love you, okay? Now go with Aunt Holly, she's going to take you home."

Wiping the dampness out of the water, he watched Liv walk past Nancy (not without making a grimace of displeasure at her) and run to grab Holly's legs. They talk a little, Holly comforting Liv, and then they leave as if Nancy was not there waiting for them.

Seeing himself alone with his older sister, more specifically under her evaluative gaze, Mike immediately stands up and takes a defensive stance, ready for a verbal argument (which was what happened whenever they saw each other). It was a long time ago when he trusted, feared, and respected the figure of Nancy - now she was like a stranger, a family tree neighbor for whom he had an unhealthy amount of resentment.

Mike would never, and he was sure of it, could overcome the grief of going for help and being rejected by her. Worse! She, his own sister, the one who had taken care of him while their mother was going to salons, who had helped him with his homework and the stupid bullies, preferred to believe in strangers than in his word when he was said to be innocent.

Of course, he resented her. Clear.

"Michael, you know you can't do this," Nancy speaks to him, false condescension ringing her voice. "It will only make the situation worse."

He crossed his arms over his chest.

"Make things worse for who? For our parents, the same parents who want to steal my daughter? Yes, I will definitely continue to make things worse."

"Why don't you make things easy? It's not good for Olivia to grow up in a troubled home with a father..."

"A father what, Nancy?!" Mike is screaming before he can figure it out, red eyesight. "Say, it will not be the first time you're going to say it in my face."

Nancy squeezes lips painted with nude lipstick for some reason that was beyond his comprehension as it wouldn't be the first time, refusing to finish the sentence. Mike doesn't delude himself into thinking that perhaps she is sorry for not believing his honesty, after all, that was the great Nancy Elizabeth Wheeler, a Harvard-based lawyer who is a partner in one of the largest offices in Hawkins, and such a person never she wouldn't go back, not even for her little brother.

He rubbed the back of his neck, uncomfortable with Nancy's presence. Reliable and kindly she had become the traitorous idiot.

"You need to hear me, Mike..."

"And why do I need to do this?" He stepped close to the elegant woman, which would have made them face to face were it not for the difference of stature. "Why do I need to listen to the woman who was once my sister, the rat who is helping those people steal my daughter?!"

Nancy's face can turn red even under all the makeup applied by her.

"Rat?!" She holds her hand to her chest as if he has seriously injured her. "And who’s saying that? The irresponsible one who has a daughter because he forgot to use the condom, the idiot of a very bad character who tried to play the smart guy and steal one of the biggest tech companies."

And generally, in this part of the Wheeler brothers' discussion, Mike would back off, shocked at how low Nancy could be in her argumentation (so she was good at what she did); but not this time.

"Do not come any closer to Olivia, Michael, you know Mom doesn't agree with these visits." Nancy tosses blond hair over her shoulder, flawless posture. "If you insist on that, I'm sorry, but we'll be forced to call the police to take you back."

He shook his head, perplexed by the rottenness of Nancy Wheeler. God, was that woman really saying she was going to call the police if he tried to talk with his daughter again? Was she listening to herself?! Of course, she was.

Aware that anything spoken there could be used against him at a future hearing by Liv's guard, Mike insists on hitting Nancy's shoulder and then marches away from her. People are an indistinct blur, anger, and bitterness distorting any kind of vision he might have - the red-haired woman who accompanied him closely, the curious people in the city who had known him since childhood or cars that several times almost ran over to the place where the car had been parked.

Who did they think they were to determine whether or not he could see his daughter?! Those hypocrites, acting like he was a killer and they were saving Liv. They did not really care about her, Mike knew that for certain; their main purpose was to gain a positive image in the society of Hawkins, the kind and the perfect couple who was saving their granddaughter from a stained reputation - a way to camouflage the decaying marriage and the extramarital affairs they both had.

Mike turns his attention to something beyond the great resentment that was in his chest when he arrives at the street of the old arcade of Hawkins, where he had parked the car. No, it's not in the car he's paying attention to or in the nerd den he used to attend when he was younger, but in the man standing next to the car, scanning the vehicle with second thoughts and a crowbar in his hand.

"Hey! Stay away from my car!" He shouted, quickening his pace. "I'll call the police..."

"And then they'll arrest you because if you've forgotten, you're the thug here, Frog face."

The idiot nick-name of childhood was not quoted, but Mike would recognize that asshole anywhere on earth. Troy Harrington. He had not particularly changed anything since high school graduation, the same idiot in the same clothes and face.

"Well, now, who have we here?" Troy grins his teeth at him. "If it's not Michel Wheeler's Toad, wait, that's kind of wrong, now it's Michael Thief Wheeler, right?"

Surely the time had not made Troy mature. The same talent as always.

"What?! Are you going to shut up?"

"Get away from my car, Troy, I'm late." He illustrated the apathetic order with a disdainful wave of his hand. All he wanted least that day was to fight Troy's idiot.

"Delayed to try to steal another millionaire and then fail miserably? Do not rush it."

Clenching his teeth, Mike rummages through his jeans pocket for the car keys, the only thing left of his old life, before Brenner fucks it all.

"Very funny, Harrington, I'm laughing inside, I swear." He reached for the car keys with a shriek of mental joy as he pretended to laugh. "Get out of my car, okay? I have to get back to my house."

"And you're not going to take your little bastard? Oh, yes, your parents are picking her up for charity. Who would say, eh, that the stranger at school was going to get pregnant a girl in college..."

Mike was still laughing, a laconic sound that was far from agreeable as he grabbed hold of two handfuls of Troy's hair and forced his face against the roof of the car. One, two, three times. It only stopped when he saw, with sickly taste, blood streaming down the slightly crooked nose of Steve Harrington's brother. That was limited compared to all the pain that had ever been inflicted on him by that idiot.

Satisfied, he pushed the man away from him and got into the car, not having the patience to admire the work done. All he wanted was to get out of that shitty town, a place he'd promised never to return.

"Why did you do that?" Troy cackles from his place on the floor.

"Because I told you to get away from my car, dumbass."

He buried his foot on the accelerator, crazy to breathe again the polluted air of Chicago. His life could be shit, but at least it was shit in Chicago, away from Hawkins' inquisitiveness.

 

* * *

 

 

He would never get used to the bright lights he faced every night, the noise of electronic music or the drunken idiots he attended every night without exception. Not that he hated ballads, that he was a twenty-three-year-old man with a spirit of an eighty-nine-year-old man or something - the point was that it was not his dream work, it was not what had been idealized, so getting used to it was not one of the easiest things in the world.

But no one could tell he was not trying.

Even with the headaches caused by the annoying music and lights, even with the aversion he had for many inconvenient customers, Mike was struggling. He couldn't complain about the job that gave him enough money to keep and, moreover, a minimum house to live in a certain way for free.

Already performing the process of serving the beer on the automatic, he ungraciously pushed the overflowing glass to the half-drunk man without spilling a single drop on the counter, assessing the club's ambiance for a glimpse, even quick, of the red hair that came chasing after the last days. No sign of the redhead. Just a bunch of dancing drunks, some male chauvinist idiots fiddling with girls and a blond woman dancing happily, alone, like there's no tomorrow.

"Dude, are you going to tell me what happened in Hawkins with Liv?" Dustin, who with careful movements dries a freshly washed glass, questions with curiosity. "Your fucking face is already, like, a preview of things gone wrong, but I want to know exactly what went wrong."

Mike rested his elbow on the counter and his chin in his hand, lingering in his movements so he wouldn't have to answer the question immediately. Leaving Dustin unanswered was not something he was contemplating doing, but neither was it as if he could do it immediately, not with the blood still boiling with rage.

"I got to see Liv" He started with the good part. "And Holly is worried about me."

"Your little sister has gone from being a little brat to a good-hearted girl." Dustin laughs displaying the white, well-groomed pearls that are his teeth. "What about Liv? She's fine, right?"

"Surprisingly, my parents are taking good care of her. She looks just like she's never been with me." He ran a hand over his face. "They're still insisting on the thing to have ultimate her custody."

"What the fuck... Why don't they just leave Liv with you? They're never going to love that little girl or take care of her the way she deserves, not like you."

At any other time Dustin's support would be received with the least gratitude, but after all that had happened in Hawkins - Nancy's hypocrisy, Liv being taken again and Troy calling him a thief as if he owned the truth - all what he could feel was the expansion of the hole that existed inside his stomach and which, day after day, was eroded by the acid of hatred that had existed since Martin Brenner.

Before him, everything was so simple, so happy. Only him and Liv, with occasional visits from the ones he'd chosen to be godparents for his daughter. Then he appeared and as a tornado destroyed everything, he took everything from Mike that was not really much compared to other people. But it was his and was taken without any mercy or hesitation. The demon named Brenner had planted inside him the most rotten of feelings and now he lived with impunity, as if nothing had happened or had not done anything.

Mike was past the point of wondering why all this happened, and now he simply asked why Brenner was unpunished. **Why?** Why would a rotten person like him remain unpunished? Should not there be some kind of punishment for demons like him?

"Hey, man, take a look here!" Dustin slaps his arm. "I think I died and the angel of death came to get me."

Angel of Death? He looked at his best friend to make sure he had heard correctly.

"Dustin?"

"She's so beautiful" Dustin practically drooled on the counter that separated them from the dance floor of the nightclub where they worked. "She looks like an angel ready to kill me."

"Angels don't kill, Dustin, trust me, the guy who spent his childhood being dragged by his great-grandmother to the church. What kind of praise is this?”

"Well, that angel seems like a killer. Look and make your own conclusions."

He rolled his eyes at Dustin's exaggeration. His friend had a weakness for women, every night he was on all fours by a couple of shapely legs that came into the nightclub and did not even look in his face, never one being similar to the other, so there was no way Mike really took him seriously.

Curious to know the brief passion of the night, he searched the dancing crowd with his eyes and then located she. She was dominating the dance floor, standing out among thousands of people in the same way a diamond would point out amidst a set of basalt - steps and confident movements, hips swaying seductively to the music, platinum blonde hair flying from one side to the other, face lost in a world beyond the earth she was treading on.

Her clothes, the way it all looked, just one more spoiled a little girl trying to piss off her father with one of her nights whole of alcohol, but Dustin was right after all. She was beautiful, a sight to fill her eyes with her joy and her laughter. A queen occupying her rightful place.

It's hard to look away from her for the rest of the night, harder than he can admit to himself, and maybe that's why he's the first to notice her coming. Laughing, she takes one of the uncomfortable seats where no one sits except to order a drink or complain about life with the bartender (he, in that case) and leans over the counter.

"I don't know," she says, drawing imaginary circles over the wet wood of melted ice. "What do you think I should drink, handsome?"

Both Mike and Dustin stop what they are doing and stare at it.

"Are you talking to me?"

"Or to me?"

The blonde's makeup-blurred eyes crinkle in amusement.

"Are they both at my order? Magnifique!" She pats, her red lips tempting. "But, I'm sorry, curly, I'm going to pick the handsome here. He's more my type."

Dustin nods unmoving, going to another drunk who is approaching the liquor counter.

"So, what do you want?" He pointed to the beverage racks. "You said you wanted one..."

"I want you" The woman comments casually, perspiring second and third intentions. "But for the moment, I think I'm going to have a tequila, right?"

He left to raise his eyebrows and allow the surprise to appear only after turning his back to the blonde. Tequila? She had a finger for alcohol, that was undeniable.

"I was not very clear, handsome?" The blonde purrs, grabbing Mike's hand as he tries to pull away. "The whole tequila, handsome, the bottle and all that's inside."

"Are you sure?"

"Afraid I'll get drunk, handsome? Do not worry about it, I'm tough." She blinks at him exuding charm. "I'd rather wait for the end of your day to do nicer things together."

A guy couldn't say that it was not at all flattering to be flirted so blatantly by a pretty girl like that, but the truth is that it couldn't go too far for two basic reasons:

01) Relationships, however brief and summing up occasional kisses and fits, were not his thing. With three girlfriends in love's criminal records - Lauren Craig at age twelve, Melody Heidi at sixteen, and Liv's mother in college - Mike was not a relationship expert, and frankly, he was not looking for a romance.

02) The woman also did not seem to be the type of person who has a fixed relationship with someone, in fact, she seemed to be the type who had sex with someone and after freaking out. Not Mike’s type.

"Listen, why don't you go look for someone like you?" He indicated the drunks on the dance floor. "I'm working."

"I'm working too, handsome."

"Oh, and what are you working on?"

The woman's smile becomes less malicious and more dangerous.

"Revenge against Martin Brenner." She gets up from the uncomfortable stool, adjusting the neckline of her black dress. "If you want revenge against Martin Brenner, and I know you want, meet me in the back of the club in ten minutes.

Considering the fact that he and Dustin were two living targets and that she, the one who mentioned Brenner, could work for the bigger idiot and pull them into a trap where the two would die, Mike really should not be tempted to follow the girl, but... But the word "revenge" was all he needed to hear to go anywhere - to the hell and the alley behind the nightclub where he worked.

Without hesitating even once, Mike grabs Dustin's arm and tows him to the right place. Even if it was a joke of terrible taste, it was not hard to take a look.

"Mike, man, what are you doing?" Dustin questioned with shock at his friend's agitation.

"Let's get to the bottom of something. Relax."

"Relax with you being possessed by the spirit of a nutcase? No, thank you."

The blond woman/girl is there, exactly where she told him to find her. Illuminated by the red and blue light of the back of the nightclub, casually propped against the wall with her arms folded making her breasts stand out, she smiles when she sees him coming. Most troubling, she’s not alone. Beside the blonde girl is the most intimidating woman he has ever seen.

The first of the two to move, contrary to what he expected, is the woman; the girl stands back, still smiling. The woman is small, dark skin, purposely blurred makeup, wide black clothes, and interested expression. She doesn't look like a murderer, nor does she look pure-hearted.

"I thought you were alone." He spoke directly to the blonde, eyes fixed on her.

"I never said that." She discourses, no longer looking like the drunk and immature girl she'd shown to be minutes ago. "And Kali is the one who wants to talk to you, I kind of just went bait. Sorry."

"Bait what?" He frowned, mental cogwheels spinning and trying to reason. "Are you going to dismember us at the behest of Brenner?"

"Oh man!" Dustin laments with a rage. "You brought me to die?!"

"No one here is going to die..."

"She" Dustin points to the woman in dark clothes and heavy makeup. "Looks like a psychopath, and you, blond, don't even look drunk anymore. Shit, shit, shit, WE'RE GONNA DIE, our lifeless bodies will be found in a ditch."

He scanned the blonde quickly and confirmed Dustin's statement on his own. He was right, the blonde had undergone a change from water to wine, and beyond appearance, she had no resemblance to her self from minutes ago - she was no longer in shock, acting like a rampant, drunk person or something. She looked more... Serious, mature and that was definitely more appealing to him.

"Eleven has never been drunk. Now pay attention, I don't like to keep repeating myself." The woman in dark clothes approaches the two, evaluating them predatorily. "I am Kali Prasad, you can look up my name if you want to confirm my identity, and like you, Martin Brenner has done me a lot of harm. He has done evil to many people, people who now want to take revenge on him. I believe you want that, too, don't you? "

"What do you want with us?"

Mike looks around for signs of some impending danger or something that might bring them more disgrace.

"You talked about revenge." He continued, now evaluating them in search of a bright object - a knife, a glass shard, or a revolver. "I'm still not hearing too many details about it."

Kali Prasad laughs, head leaning forward slightly, something that gives movement to her purplish hair. He doesn't know what impression she wants to make, whether, of lightness or scorn, the only thing he knows is that she scares him. She, to tell you the truth, reminds him a lot of Brenner - what a characteristic makes him feel this way, he doesn't know to explain for sure.

"And you will not even hear about that, Wheeler, not today at least. Listen to me: if you're interested in this, if you want to know the plan to destroy the reign of Martin Brenner." She leans against them, too close to his taste. "I'll send you an address for your cell phone, time and address. If you come to the address at the appointed time, I'll know that you want to be part of the plan and then, just there, I'll tell it to you."

"What if we don't show up?" Dustin defied, much more petulance than he felt.

"I'll assume you’re out, which will be more than a shame."

Following the actions that her role of threatening and mysterious woman dictate, Kali Prasad walks past them and leaves. That simple. Not a word of persuasion, just that and, shit, that was enough to stir up all the curiosity that existed within both Hawkins's men.

Stunned, Mike turns to the blonde woman for explanations, but she is not there either. The nightclub door is open, which suggests that she is somewhere in there, but judging by her sneaky exit, it is clear she doesn't want to talk or be questioned about what has just happened.

"What was this?" Dustin punctuates every word in correspondence with what he is feeling. "WHAT WAS THIS? BEYOND WEIRD, WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?!"

"I don't know..."

"If we learn anything today, it is that we should not trust pretty blondes who call us into dark alleys." Finally leaving his shock, Dustin smacks his arm in indignation. "You got mad, man?! Drag me out of work, get out of a crazy woman who was waiting for us with another crazy woman who could, I don't know, murdered us and left us i..."

Placing Dustin and his complaints - which even had a logical background - in mute, Mike takes the cell phone in the back pocket of his pants and, not surprisingly, realizes that less than two minutes ago received four consecutive messages from an unknown number.

**_Saint. Bennett Avenue._ **

**_Mirrored building._ **

**_19th floor by elevator._ **

**_14:00. Without delays._ **

Mike is almost pocketed in his pocket his cell phone and giving Dustin's little outburst the attention it deserves when a new message flashes on his cell phone screen.

**_Think about what you are doing._ **

**_Make the right choice, handsome._ **

He stared at the cell phone screen, more than aware that he had already thought and chosen what he wanted. Tomorrow, more than ever, he would need being someone punctual.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the grammatical and semantic errors you encounter while reading. I know they're boring and I'm trying to improve. I am still learning English and translating what I write in my language into the English language is kind of a way to improve this learning.
> 
> I'm sorry if this bothers you or makes you feel offended. Your help and patience is always welcome.


	3. Brown is the color of the (good or bad) decisions of your destiny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike knows the true identity of the blonde who appeared in the club and decides whether or not to embark on Kali's elaborate plan of revenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wanted to get updated before, guys, but you know how college life is, right? When you think you are putting an end to the projects and field research BUM appears a teacher saying that the class is a due note and that it needs to spend something so that the semester is not lost. God, I was sent a video for youtube and I was like "WHAT ??", but I had to do it the same way. Dude, if you have a favorite youtuber value his work, understand? You can not imagine the work that is to record, edit and put on youtube. Crazy thing.
> 
> Awn, seriously, wanted to thank everyone who left their kudos here. Every time I get a notification I get stunned, not believing anyone actually did it. Be welcome.
> 
> Things you need to know before reading this fanfic:
> 
> × They are adults (not so well resolved).
> 
> × Mike has a life before Eleven.
> 
> × Mike has a daughter (who is not Eleven’s daughter).
> 
> × El is the romantic of the two.
> 
> Sometimes Mike may seem like a little ice heart, but he has his reasons.
> 
> × Revenge is the key word here.
> 
> × The Wheelers father and mother suck.
> 
> × If you do not hate Martin Brenner is reading wrong.

 

 

He leaned forward thoughtfully against the car door, surveying the mirrored building that stood less than twenty yards away. It was the only "decent" building in the area, the others around it being nothing more than the remains of an industrial zone long abandoned in the face of its decadence and loss of elegance.

There wasn't a single citizen walking there, no living soul, which, not for the first time made him wonder what the hell he was doing there. It was really worth risking everything for an empty promise of two strange women who appeared at the nightclub by surprise and disappeared soon after. It was as Dustin had said, that it could be a Brenner trap to wipe out witnesses to his crimes, but the point there was that Mike had nothing to lose anymore, that he was already tired of putting together pathetic little plans against that fucking bastard.

Mike wanted to do something real, something that would be beyond pounding the wall of Brenner's various houses or putting tacks under his expensive car tires in the middle of the night - something that would hurt him, cause permanent and social damage as big as had been inflicted upon him. Any chance of him advancing and causing damage to Martin Brenner's life for him was a golden chance.

He picked up his cell phone and typed a warning message, informing the number from the previous night that he was already there.

"This looks like the perfect place to get us killed." Dustin, who had whimpered all the way up there, comments with false coincidence. "I think we're going to be killed."

He tapped his fingers against the screen of the device, waiting for an answer.

**_I'll get you._ **

"I did not make you come here, did I?" He answered Dustin's complaints, still focused on the phone.

**_It will not be too difficult to see you._ **

**_This street isn’t very busy, you know?_ **

"Did you fuck off?! I would never let my best friend come here alone." The curl responds not very firmly, the uncertainty surging in his voice.

"So... Since you came to play my bodyguard." He put his cell phone in his pocket when the person gave no hint of reacting to his joke. "With what will you protect me, Mr. Kevin Costner of Hawkins?"

"It seems like you, Eustace Bagge, is in a good mood today." He stepped back a few inches after a brief friendly nudge from Dustin. "But, yes, I came prepared to defend ourselves."

With the same smile of pride he'd used to tell him about his first kiss with Pearl Keller, Dustin pulled his waist high and lifted as high as he could, no less than a pair of scissors whose head was adorned with colored pebbles.

He frowned at the object, lips pursed in a straight line, avoiding to the utmost to allow any kind of mockery or sarcastic commentary to escape and hurt feelings that should belong to a six-year-old. What mattered was his intention, wasn't it? And Dustin's intention had been one of the best - even though, if necessary, the scissors would do nothing but be mocking.

"What's it?" His friend's bright smile weakens a little. "It isn't enough? "

_ "What matters is the intention, I think that's what he's thinking now." _

To feel admired by a woman, to make explicit how swayed he was with her beauty is something Mike abandoned when he was about fourteen - or, if you preferred more specificity, when he realized that the girls at school mocked him for his spontaneous admiration - but he almost forgets this learning of maturity when it comes to the woman whose approach they did not perceive and who is now standing in front of them.

It was the same woman as last night, the blonde, but she... She was completely different now, far from her previous behavior or even her appearance.

Her facial features were more accentuated now that she visibly limited herself to what seemed to be the least makeup, her beauty not being concealed but exposed to the maximum of the maximum. Soft pink lips, eyes covered with sunglasses, golden skin, snub-nosed nose, and surprisingly, the platinum strands had been replaced by light brown curls that fell over the eyes and shoulders. The short dress was replaced by jeans, white striped T-shirt, a red leather jacket and heeled boots.

But not only had the clothes and hair changed: her aura, the facial expression on her beautiful face had completely changed. Nothing to indicate the shadow of the laughing, giggling woman who had sexily flirted with him the night before. Only a beautiful woman, self-possessed, mature and postured by someone who was knowledgeable of truths that had opened her eyes to life.

Dustin, his eyes wide with scare and scissors, wasn't recognizing her, and if he was, he did not have the same interest he had last night - proving the strange fetish he had for blondes with an inconsistent attitude - but Mike... Mike somehow felt himself gravitating more and more toward that person who exuded confidence that the character she had presented.

"No, that's not what I was thinking." He nodded negatively, feeling oddly trapped. "So you came to get us?"

"Apparently, isn't it?" She snapped impatiently.

"Wait a minute, you were a blonde last night, weren't you?" Dustin interrupts the nameless, agitated woman. "Does that mean you're going to kill me? Are we going to die? Oh my God!”

"That means A) I was wearing an itchy wig and that B) you need to visit a psychologist to talk about your obsession about someone killing you." She smiles sideways. "I like you, Dustin Henderson."

"Swear?"

Without answering, the brown-haired woman waves to them and walks across the street, pausing to look at them irritably when she realizes she is alone.

"What?!" Snorted at her. "Should we follow you? You did not say anything, did you?"

"Certain things are implied, idiot."

Without hesitation, Dustin follows her into the building, completely forgetting that he was there to accompany him, not because he was really interested in the revenge thing. Mike, however, was beginning to lose heart in every possible way - both for the possibility of revenge and for the glow he had for the woman.

_Beauty does not ensure character or personality,_ he thought wickedly following them to the inside of the building and entering the only elevator that existed there. _Great!_ _I’m would have to be stuck in an enclosed cubicle with that... Highly beautiful sarcastic woman._ _Perfect!_

"So..." Dustin begins awkwardly after a brief moment of silence, unable to hold himself. "You know our names."

"And the point of it is?"

"I want to know your name. What's your name?"

He can not see for sure, fringe and goggling, but something makes it clear that she arches her eyebrows at that question.

"You looked nicer yesterday," Mike comments when it becomes clear that the woman isn't going to give them answers. "I think I prefer you more like a happy drunk than that..."

"That what, Wheeler?!" The beautiful woman with sour words stalls before him. "Bicth? I assure you, I'm not yet bitching, at least not yet. You would know that."

Mike lifted his nose, ignoring what the sweet scent of her perfume was doing to him. It had not occurred to him to call her a bitch, but now seeing her so energetic it was obvious that going back and saying that to her would not be good.

"You kiss your boyfriend with that mouth?" He used the elevator wall to support himself as she approached dangerously.

"I also use her for other things, a little more pleasurable things." She swallowed, shivers trailing down her spine as the tone of voice she used. "To make him happy, to drink, for example..."

"Tequila, isn't it?"

The woman moves closer to him, her hand resting on his chest, ignoring the fact that the elevator door is wide open.

"Strongest better." She stands on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. "Do not suppose things. Facts can change. Truth can surprise you and push you back, handsome.”

Mike's mind is still struggling to process all the new information when the woman throws her brown curls into his face and exits the elevator as if nothing had happened. Hearing the recognizable noise of impatient people outside but still stunned by what had just happened, he looked at his best friend for answers.

Unexpectedly, Dustin, with his face lit up, light eyes agitated and bright smile wasn't nearly as confused as he was.

"This woman is crazy." He pointed to the elevator door through which she had passed.

Dustin nods with a smile that indicates he knows more than he was willing to talk.

"I like her. I think Liv will like her, too."

"Why would my daughter like this..." He inflated like a balloon, seeking some cursing that was good, but that wasn't too demeaning. "Disturbed?"

"She needs to like her future stepmother, I suppose."

Mike feels the blood gathering on his face, his skin tingling as much as it had tingled when Nancy had caught him having his first kiss in front of the house.

"What? Do you think me and this crazy are…? Oh, dude, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard." He laughed without pity. "I would never want something with such a maniac. Relationships are ... unnecessary, I do not want any of this for myself. "

"So you're going to say you did not like her?"

"I did not like her." He said without hesitation, "I did not like the way she treated us like she was superior."

Dustin's curls create life in his head when he shakes her in negative.

"I thought you got the whole thing, but... Shit, sometimes you're painfully obtuse, Mike."

"And sometimes you're painfully mad."

Mentally pouting the mere possibility of any involvement with that (beautiful) woman, even in an assumption arising from Dustin's romantic hallucinations, Mike emerges from the elevator like a rocket - fast and setting fire - to an insipid room, stripped of any striking feature. His fire is quickly extinguished when he encounters many pairs of eyes staring at him, as intent as hawks in pursuit of his hunt.

_ This isn't an ambush _ , he reminded himself after spending all day enduring Dustin's paranoia and eventually getting infected by them.  _ I will not die. No one is going to kill me. _

Dustin, who is still mumbling about his obtuseness, bumps into him as soon as he realizes how many people there are to receive them. So many people. Women and men of different ages, different styles and who clearly had nothing in common. A bunch of strangers sitting on plastic chairs, puffs, and cushions that, though visibly as curious as the two of them, seemed unwilling to do any harm.

The only familiar face among those various people was that of the short woman in blurred makeup and dark clothes who had intercepted them along with the blond (who was no longer blonde) last night. Contrary to the crap, Kali Prasad, sitting among the other people, had not changed anything in his appearance, still the same. Arms crossed, serious face and half-closed dark eyes - all indicating she was the leader of all this.

"Looks like you made a decision." Kali sketches out what Mike used to call a friendly smile. "That's nice."

"We do not..."

"We have not made a decision yet." Mike interrupts his friend's stuttering. "You said you would tell us more about a plan of revenge against Brenner. We are here to listen, then we will decide."

Kali does not seem happy with this statement, but whatever displeasure she has in mind, she keeps to herself.

"And what do you want to know?"

"We want to know what kind of terrain we're on," Dustin responds so quickly, recovering from his stutter. "If this is for real."

"More real than your plans to destroy him by boring car tires and pitting houses?" The woman mocks and Mike is sure that it is in this small questioning that she avenges herself by their demands. "I think so."

He shifted his weight, not unsettled by Kali's taunts. For some reason, she did not irritate him as much as the woman with brown curls, despite being noticeably worse.

"Then why do not you talk soon? Save your time and ours."

"That's exactly what I'm going to do, Sirs. All of you, taking care of your lives. Maxine and Dottie, see how Eleven and Axel are doing." She waves to them. "You two, kindly accompany me. There's something I'd like to show you."

Among the many possibilities Kali wanted to show them that was going through Mike's head at that moment, definitely, between them, he wasn't in front of the most perfect and complete monitoring room on the face of the earth. Screens showing pictures of Martin Brenner's businesses, computers computing what analyzing more closely seemed to be given and news stories about him too.

The nerd paradise commanded by a man who, sitting in front of a laptop, did not seem to have noticed his visitors.

"SHIT! I DIE AND I WILL STOP IN HEAVEN!" Dustin exclaimed in a rush to lovingly smooth the CPU of one of the operant computers.

The man at the laptop laughs softly at the reaction, nodding positively in clear agreement. Oh, a nerd like them! It was good to find similar.

"Lucas, put the information on the screen, please."

"Leave it to me, Kali."

"Okay, before the nerds start trying to kiss the gadgets, pay attention to everything I say, understood?" Kali Prasad waves to the bright screens and immediately photos and information about people appeared on the screen. "These people have nothing in common - family, hometown, tastes, nothing more than to have already worked in Martin Brenner's companies and, by 'coincidence of fate', receive a sudden salary increase and soon thereafter to be accused of fraud and others crimes. Does it sounding familiar to you?"

As if for sure she knew that more than sounded familiar, Mike was busy studying the images until, side by side, he found his and Dustin’s photos and information. There was absolutely everything about them. Age, hometown, family, accusations that had brought them to jail, old jobs, new lifestyle. Damn it, there was even a photo of Liv there, below his own photo.

He felt like throwing up as he became aware that the woman knew about his life, about his little girl.

"I think you more than anyone knows the answer is yes."

"Of course I know, Mike, we have all the information about the victims and, of course, about your executioner."

The images on the screen change to photos of Martin Brenner at various times; he and his blond wife, in the corporation, talking to businessmen, he and a young blond woman in what looked like a heated discussion. One of the photos that most attracts his attention is the one in which he tows a petite little girl with brown hair who tries to escape his touch while reaching for a desperate blonde girl dressed in mourning suits.

"Martin Brenner, CEO of a Technology Industries Franchise, Husband, Adoptive Parent, Generous enough to make monthly donations to charities. And blah, blah, blah!" She points to the screens in each of her words. "For us, he's just a life-destroying motherfucker. Well, it's great that we have some evidence of that, right?"

"If you have proof, why do you need us?" Dustin walks away from the computer. “Is not it just putting it all in the media? Tell everyone the truth?"

"Oh, is it that simple, Dustin Henderson? Was it simple when you, even without having any infractions on your criminal records, even claiming to be innocent, were arrested?"

"No, it wasn't, but..."

"Nothing is simple with Martin Brenner, he buys everything and everyone, we need..."

"Destroy him underneath, with small things at the beginning, slowly increasing to when this information comes out he does not have more money or faithful people to help him." Mike completes quickly, without thinking. "It is?"

"Precisely," Kali smirks at him. "Now I need two people who know how to use computer technology to help Lucas. He's good, but three heads think better than one."

Mike and Dustin have a long exchange of looks, mentally evaluating how much it was worth and arguing through looks.

For Mike, who knew in his heart that he was about to lose his daughter's custody if he did not clean his name, had no family support, and whose reputation had been destroyed for any employer in his area, this offer was more than welcome. Not only because he wiped his name before society because he wanted to regain the life he had, but it was also because of his desire for revenge.

He needed revenge on what Martin Brenner had done to him, yearning for it as an alcoholic yearning for alcohol in his first week of abstinence. Innumerable times he had fallen asleep after spending the night working, wondering if one day he would be able to inflict on the wretch the same mental and social damage, the same pain and anguish as he had suffered.

All he wanted most in life was to see Martin Brenner crying the same tears he had cried, suffering the same pain he had suffered.

"Yeah! I’m game."

" _ Mike _ !" Dustin squeaks in a slightly shaken voice. "What do you think you're doing?"

He looked at his best friend without understanding his agitation.

"This son of a bitch put us in jail, Dustin, we were arrested without a lawyer, and that's certainly not something right or within the law, he gave everything my family needed to get Olivia out of me." He crossed his arms over his chest. "I guess I have enough reason, do not I? So, yeah, I’m game."

"For your behavior, Dustin Henderson." Kali enters the conversation. "Shall I conceive that you aren't in?"

"Who in good conscience speaks 'conceive', man?"

"Are you in or aren't you?"

Mike saw Dustin staring at him, his face pensive.

"Even though I'm not confident in this thing... I would never let my friend in without me. I'm with you, bro."

Smiling, he wrapped his arms around his best friend and hugged him. Besides Liv and Holly, Dustin was his only family and it was good, very good to have his support.

Kali, who did not seem to be the kind of woman who showed many emotions, smiled laconically at the moment they stared at.

"Dustin, if you want, you can stay here with Lucas, to familiarize yourself with everything. Wheeler, will you come with me, please?

"What do you want with Mike?" Dustin grabs him protectively, teasing Lucas off as he pulls Mike away from Kali.

"Oh, you know, I'm just going to throw him to the sharks we keep in the next room and then come back to get you and do the same thing.”

He rested a hand on Dustin's shoulder, trying to reassure him and also move away in that act.

"Relax, okay? I'll be fine."

"The last time you told me to relax... She happened. Well, she and the blond woman who isn’t really blond." Dustin points to Kali to exemplify his point.

He laughed out loud, leaving Dustin with no concrete answer and following Kali before she left him behind. From the first impressions he had managed to capture from that woman, he could see that besides being severe, she wasn't the kind of person who kept repeating herself or who was waiting for someone.

Kali Prasad is like a rocket as she walks the corridors that are on the nineteenth floor of the building and the only thing that keeps him from losing sight of her is the fact that his legs are almost twice the size of hers. If she decided to run, Mike would only have to take a few steps a little longer and not as exhausting as he did at that moment, to reach it without extra worries.

What bothers him about that quick walk isn't the physical requirement it costs, but the fact that he can not take a good look at the environment. Mike had this thing in him, almost a basic need to make him comfortable, to study the characteristics of where he was - it was a way of feeling more secure, a way of knowing, even if only by appearance, the terrain in which he was risking to tread.

"What's so important you want to talk to me that Dustin can’t hear?" He asked, trying to heal the curiosity that dominated him at every step. "You know I'll tell him everything, do not you?"

"I'm not stupid, boy. I know you and your friend are like two gossipy confidants, faithful to each other. The fact is that this second part only envelops you, does not involve him. Your friend has a little paranoia involving death, and that could ruin everything. "

"But I do not have this paranoia."

"And you hate Brenner as much as I. What makes you perfect for what I have in mind." Kali stops suddenly, her unbridled walk finished before a closed door. "Some people stay here, helping with the information, just like Dustin and Lucas do, but most often act like .. Infiltrated. Brenner fucking people live, but do not even bother recording their faces. He believes everyone will shut up, that justice will never touch him. "

Mike takes an evaluative break.

"You want me to be like these guys, is this... that I... infiltrate, that infiltrates to destroy his empire?"

"I need people keeping an eye on him, both from far and near." The woman confirms his assumptions. "I already have a person doing this for me, watching him closely, it's true, but it would be nice to have someone there with her, being support. How it sounds to you?"

He shrugged, not impressed. The heyday of things beyond his imagination had already reached the limit, so if Kali was asking him to play James Bond in disguise, then that was what he was doing.

All to destroy Brenner.

Mike's conviction has a small collapse when, always accompanied by Kali, he walks into the room behind the door where the two had stopped to talk. The place is interesting, made up of two huge windows that if it weren't for its industrial appearance would even remind you of the giant window that was in the living room of Monica Geller's apartment in Friends and two concrete walls. Replacement mattresses piled to the bottom, camouflaged by the puffs and reclining sofa that was scattered randomly enough far from the boxing bag and other basic appliances of a boxing academy.

And, deep in his mind, Mike wondered where the hell those people would have gotten enough money to sort the nineteenth floor like that. High-end computers, visibly expensive appliances, furniture that practically exuded the odor that things recently left. The answer would come later and definitely would not be so nice.

There were other people in that room, of course - a faded rainbow-haired woman lying with her legs on the lap of a Mohawk-haired man and a strangely familiar redhead.

Mike does not want to, but he immediately feels hypnotized by the movements her body performed. Her chest heaved up and down, the way her leg was straight as she kicked the material, the perfect alignment (and approved by Mr. Miyagi) from the wrist to the shoulders and the way her hair flew... It was extremely impressive. It was like watching the most interesting television show that existed.

But suddenly the interesting television show gets static, an annoying background noise when the woman notices him. He can not see her eyes, the sunglasses still on her face, but her expression tells all about the disgust she is feeling at seeing him. She clearly wasn't his fangirl.

"Eleven, could you please take a break?" Kali asks, looking at the other carefully. "I need to talk to you."

"Oh no!" The mohawk guy moans with obvious amusement. "Shorty was almost making the sack bleed like a human."

"Or cry." The one with colored hair laughs together.

"There's a lot of anger in this little body." The redheaded woman talks between giggles, attracting Mike's attention. “Or maybe just accumulated sexual tension”

“That’s so impossible, Max.”

“So you slept with the yummy doctor?”

He had seen that woman before. Following him everywhere-in the nightclub pretending to drink, in the streets, in the shops, the day before in Hawkins, spying on Liv and Holly.

"You!" He pointed to the redhead who immediately jumped from his seat. "You've been following me in the last few days."

"Yeah, it wasn't the high point of my days, you know? I could stay home marathoning Grays Anatomy, but I had to do it." She tosses her hair of fire by the shoulders."Kali told me to keep an eye on you."

Mike swallows, disgusted with this thing of being watched. Why had this really been necessary?

"Well, Wheeler, these are Axel, Dottie, and Max." Kali nods at each person. "Guys, could you guys go out for a moment? I need to talk to Eleven."

"You do not need to talk, you have to give orders. What is it now?"

Eleven, the brown-haired woman who Mike supposes to call Eleven, hugs the boxing bag to contain his repetitive swing. He realizes that she is no longer wearing her high-heeled boots, which makes her extremely short.

"I'm going to put Wheeler in with all the outside activities we have. You're as close to a familiar face as he can have here, and I believe this will be good for his results."

"Of course you will."

"I'm sorry, I do not understand, your sarcasm has disrupted your understanding."

"And that's our cue to get out of here." Axel whistles loudly pulling Dottie and Max out of the room, away from the tension.

Mike's mind is a thousand, working on all the information he had just received so spontaneously indirect to deal with the obvious barbs between the two women. Now he was on a real quest to break up Brenner, he would work on computers with Dustin, but at times - apparently important moments - he would have to work with the brown-baked, sour-humor woman named Eleven.

"It's nothing to worry about, Kali." Eleven retorted with a greater amount of sarcasm in his voice. "I'll take good care of your new nincompoop."

"Very well." From what Mike understands by Kali's body expression, she is gnawing with hatred for the way the other has been talking to her, but perhaps to avoid a fight, she decides to ignore it. "I'll leave you two to get to know each other better."

Mike rolls his eyes, holding on until Kali comes out of the room so he can turn to the brown-haired woman, annoyed at how she came offending him so openly.

"What's your problem with me? I did not do anything to you, did I?!" He gestured repeatedly. Hatred was something he detested, especially since it was what he had received most since the day he was born. "Are you going to talk or not ?! I want to know!"

"Listen, I'm not obliged to be giving you satisfac..."

A strident, melancholy touch that certainly did not belong to his cell phone interferes with whatever she's going to say - that without a doubt are offenses and more unfounded offenses against his person. With her hand held aloft in a mute request for silence and waiting (of course she would not let that argument slip away so easily), she grabs the phone in a bag that was thrown over one of the puffs and picks it up away from it.

It's rude of him, too impolite, but Mike has to admit that he tries very hard to get some of what she's talking about on the phone. It is natural to feel curious as she gestures a lot and, even from a distance, grimaces and bites her lower lip with obvious concern. Mike manages to pick up a few things, but nothing that makes much sense about  _ the exams being ready, the result only coming out in a few months, that probably other exams would be done in the future and that everything would be all right soon. _ It is something related to health, something serious and that shakes it enough for it to wither completely.

It begins a new connection soon after finishing the previous one. This time he can get more details; Something about a Dr. Taylor Young going to hell, that she had more to do and would not give up on her life because of his stupid caprice. There are many swearing in this new conversation, all of them directed at this Doctor.

Eleven is visibly shaken when she returns to finish their conversation. The blush on her cheeks had subsided, almost gone. Another thing that hardly existed anymore? Her haughtiness. She was stunned.

"Are you alright?" He approached her, worried. He would never do anything to confront someone in helplessness.

"Yes, I am... You do not have to worry about anything." She dismisses his concern with a wave of his hand. "Where we were?"

"You were going to sculpt me."

"Yeah, probably, but I do not think I'm going to  this anymore..."

The brown-haired woman lets out a deep gust of air, falling sitting on a puff. Mike gravitates around her, not knowing what to do.

"Listen, I do not hate you for free."

"So you have a reason?"

"I do not hate you, okay, Wheeler? I've never seen you in my entire life, so I have no reason to hate you." Eleven runs a hand through his hair, cluttering the curls. "I just... I'm disappointed. I thought you'd be smart enough not to fall for Kali's sake."

"Excuse me?"

She shakes her head, ignoring his naturally curious question. Mike is getting indignant inwardly at this thing of people there ignoring his response when Eleven takes off his glasses elegantly and reveals his eyes. They are brown, common, nothing too much. No reason to be terrified.

_ Why should he be terrified? Just because they were the prettiest brown eyes he ever saw on every face of the earth, so far from his dark brown eyes, just because that brown wasn't so completely brown, the interesting mixture between hazel and amber, forming an interesting variant of golden brown? Why would he be dazzled, just because he had suddenly been possessed by a gigantic desire to... _

"I also have problems with people I do not know, especially men. I just do not deal with men. You have a strange way, sometimes, I mean, to kiss, you're great, now for live together… well, you are strange creatures." Eleven rises from his place. "But I can start trying to deal with this problem, do not we? Facilitate our brief coexistence."

_ It would be foolish to question what she was talking about when referring to a "brief coexistence", would not it? He would be ignored anyway. _

Trying to restore her natural haughtiness, Eleven takes his hand in hers and begins to swing it repeatedly.

"Call me El, El Hopper, that's what everyone calls me."

"Mike Wheeler." He squeezed her hand willingly. She had a particularly interesting name and ... Familiar. "But you already know that, do not you?"

"There's a lot I know, Wheeler." She puts the sunglasses on top of her head.

Just when Mike thinks the teasing moment is over, El throws herself at him, sparing only a few inches away from the respect and also height difference.

"Like for example?" He whispered to her. Why was he whispering? It was idiotic.

El walks away from him as suddenly as she approached, to put on her boots, a smile so bright that she blinked as she walked ever farther away from him.

"I know we can make a good couple, it's up to you."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You must be thinking: Shit, are they bipolar? Do they have a multiple personality disorder? No, they do not have any of that. They are just... damaged humans. Everyone has moments like this: when is happy, then angry and suddenly full of sadness. This inconstancy is natural.
> 
> Despite this "truce" of Mileven, I can tell you that their relationship will be based on provocations and a bit of mistrust. Both have been injured by life, it is common to be suspicious.
> 
> I'm sorry for the grammatical and semantic errors you encounter while reading. I know they're boring and I'm trying to improve. I am still learning English and translating what I write in my language into the English language is kind of a way to improve this learning.
> 
> I'm sorry if this bothers you or makes you feel offended. Your help and patience is always welcome.


	4. Kisses that are nothing more than pure improvisation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tormented by being away from his daughter, Mike speaks things he doesn't really want to talk about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hii, padawans
> 
> I'll be frank with you: this chapter took a completely different course than I had imagined. Metaphorically speaking, he was to me a horse that took the owner's reins and guided himself. I liked the result. But that was definitely something for the future.
> 
> Awn, seriously, wanted to thank everyone who left their kudos here. Every time I get a notification I get stunned, not believing anyone actually did it. Be welcome.

Mike swore that while sailing on the ship of Kali Prasad's revenge his life would change completely, that immediately he would make the law of return fall upon Martin Brenner to make him have the punishment he deserved.

Disappointingly, it was nothing like he envisioned it would be. Past three weeks the closest he had approached the bastard who had destroyed his life had been through computer monitors while, bored, he learned every detail of Brenner's daily life. Business hours, lunch and departure times; with whom he talked for business or related and other things.

None of this quenched the hatred that existed within him. In fact, it only made him more hopeless. Occasionally, while watching everything through the monitors of the computer room, he thought that all was in vain - that justice would never strike anyone like Brenner, so wealthy and influential.

Now, as he watches the image of Brenner leaving the restaurant with his blond wife found in an inner city, his hopelessness begins to transmute into a fierce injustice. There was no more space for hatred inside his body, which was already so full of it that with a little more might reach the point of explosion, then the only thing left to him was to feel anger.

As a balm for the minutes of distress watching Brenner's luxurious life on the monitors, Mike's cell phone, which rests on the table he's been trying not to lean on, begins to ring for attention. No one except Dustin and Holly (and ultimately Eleven) used to call him and as Dustin was there on his side, arguing with Lucas about cutting-edge technologies, there was only one person left.

"Hey, Holly Doll!" He ran over any greeting that could be given to him. "Mom's been pulling your leg?"

_ "Dad?" _

He stiffened in his chair, boredom and anger evaporating in the air.

"Liv?" He looked at Dustin with wide eyes, pointing at the cell phone. "Honey, what are you doing with your aunt's cell phone?"

_ "I stole in her backpack. Are not you happy to talk to me?" _

"Of course I'm happy to hear you, my dear, I'm very happy and I miss you. I'll always miss you. I'll visit you soon. I promise."

_ "I want to go home." _

_ I also want you to come, _ he replied mentally, tired of making empty promises to his daughter.

"And this will be..."

_ "Soon" _ His daughter completes, startling him with exasperation in her voice.  _ "That ‘soon’ never comes, Dad, never." _

It is horrible to hear the disappointment in Liv's voice, far more horrible than the disappointment that lingers in his heart.

"I promise it'll be really soon, Livs."

_ "A promise is something you can never break, ever. Remember?" _

“Yeah. I remember.”

He smiled, proud as much for the improvement in the daughter's diction as for the fact that she still remembers that.

Mike is about to ask again about Holly when a loud sound echoes to link background. It sounds like glass breaking through the screams of fury.

"Liv? What's going on there?"

_ "Grandma is screaming at Grandpa. Aunt Holly is downstairs with them, also screaming." _ A pause in the call.  _ "I'm scared, Dad." _

There's no way of knowing if this is the first time Liv has ever witnessed something like that in the Wheeler's house, but judging by the way she sounds, it would be a hunch she'd seen something like that many times. And being aware of it infuriates him.

He left the room for privacy, not wanting anyone to hear his being docile to Liv. It was just theirs and no one else needed to know.

"Livs, baby, can you do something for your Dad?" He ran his hand through his hair, tormented. "Go to your Aunt Holly's room and stay there. Not for your new room, but for your Aunt Holly's room. Don't leave until she tells you to leave, okay?"

_ "Okay, Daddy." _

The choice of Holly's room rather than Liv's had been strategic. Holly's bedroom had acoustic protection since she was small she was afraid of thunder and Liv's room, which is Mike's old room, which is also Liv's new bedroom, is completely devoid of protection from outside noises.

"Liv?" He called his daughter again when he was sure she was safe in fourth faith Holly. "Honey, tell me how the school is, yes? Are you enjoying your new friends?"

_ "They don't like me! Malena says I'm weird." _

"don't care what she says, honey."

_ "Grandma said she's going to enroll in ballet because popular girls do ballet and I need to be a popular one." _

"You just need to be happy, honey. Popularity doesn't matter."

_ "But I don't have friends, Dad. They don't like me. How could I be happy?" _

One thing he hoped Liv had not inherited from his genetics was the lack of luck to win over the kids, but apparently, she had pulled it off him.

"Sign that they are not your real friends."

_ "I noticed it." _

"Darling, when someone has to be your friend he/she will be and it will be regardless of whether you are popular or not." He comforted his daughter, knowing full well how it had been to be in her place. "Real friends don't care about popularity. They stay with you regardless ‘cause who you are."

_ "I understood... Hey! No! I'm talking to my dad! Give me back here!" _

_ "HOW MANY TIMES SHALL I HAVE TO SAY TO LEAVE OLIVIA ALONE, MICHAEL?!" _

Mike felt a shiver run down his spine as he heard his mother's voice echoing across the line. He was already responsible for his own actions, but that didn't stop him from freezing like a little child whenever Karen took him close to Liv - something she totally disapproved of, whether it was at that moment, over the phone, or physical contact. She didn't want Mike and Liv to have any further contact.

It was still surprising the empathy they, his parents, felt for Mike, away from his daughter and away from them as well. At times it seemed that they wanted to erase his existence definitely from the history of Hawkins and mankind, and this had not begun with Brenner-it was something that had been perpetuating for a long time.

"She is my daughter..."

_ "You didn't mind that when you tried to steal that tech billionaire, did you mind?" _ He clenched his fists. Always the same stupid argument.  _ "You missed the chance to take care of this child, Michael. She deserves a decent life." _

"And this life would be beside you? Listening to your cat and mouse game and screams every day? Seeing your failed marriage? Watching her Grandfather come home with the perfume of another woman and grandmother get drunk with expensive wine bottles? My daughter deserves much more than that. "

Karen Wheeler chokes on the other side of the line, something that doesn't persevere for long before she goes around.

_ "And her place is with you, I suppose?" _ She flexes the last syllables of the word.  _ "Living behind a nightclub, in a tiny apartment, with no room, probably sleeping on the living room couch with you and without studying in a good school? Is that it?" _

"Liv will have all she deserves when she comes back to live with me..."

_ "Something that will never happen. The place of this child is here, not living in a tiny and uncomfortable dump that I know is the place you live in. I know more than you think, son, and this will be used against you in the court to gain custody of her. It's nothing personal. " _

"To the hell with this ‘it's not personal’. But it's not going to stay that way. Liv's going back to live with me, you're not going to take my daughter away from me."

_ "You've always been a dreamer, son. Stay dreaming.” _ His mother sneers in a false tone of joy and in the background, Mike can hear the clear sound of Liv crying.  _ "Leave my granddaughter in peace, Michael. She deserves it.” _

A grunt that should be a counterattack to Karen Wheeler's mockery escapes Mike's lips when she hangs up the phone in his face, not without first making clear her conviction that she would gain Liv's custody regardless how to hurt her son would be.

She had never really cared for him, had she? So it wasn't like he cared now. Mike supposed he had been something of an asset to her, a glue to keep a marriage in full collapse. Too bad his nerd style had spoiled that glue function and made him just the embarrassment that didn't keep the Wheeler's marital life perfect or that he got sports awards.

There was a point that Mike hated to admit -  that Karen was right: taking Liv to his tiny apartment wasn't something that would be seen well by anyone, who will tell by a child's stick judge. He would need to get a new, more decent apartment. The problem was that no one would give him an ex-convict (even if unjustly) apartment.

And there was Brenner again spoiling everything. It was a cycle of trying to think of something else and it always ends up coming back to that damn man.

He pulled away, startled when a hand rested on his shoulder.

"Mike?" Dustin calls him in a cautious voice. "What did they do to Liv this time?"

"They scared her with their stupid fights. Just the usual, but this time she stole Holly's cell phone and called me." He looked at his best friend. "I need a new apartment, a new house."

“Where did this idea come from? Dude, I know our apartment is messy, which is not ideal, but..."

 "It's not the ideal place for Liv, is it?

“Living behind a nightclub, seeing drunken idiots fighting or almost having public sex? "

Dustin nodded, understanding what the point was.

"And then?"

"I'm going to look for a new apartment ‘cause no judge would give me Liv's custody with me living where we live today." Unlocked the cell phone to look at the wallpaper, an old photo of his daughter. "The problem here is to get a decent and reasonably priced apartment."

"And someone who wants to be a landlord of someone who has already been arrested."

He raised an eyebrow at the careless comment.

"Thank you for reminding me, Dustin. I'd forgotten about that." He says sarcastically.

To his credit, Mike's best friend blushes profusely at what he has just said, realizing how rude it was.

"It was automatic! I was trying to comfort you and I ended up getting the wrong way."

"Do you know this consolation thing?" He whispered condescendingly. "don't try, you're not good at it."

Dustin pokes him in the ribs, something that after years of coexistence had become a sign that corroded with guilt, he would try to distract Mike's focus on something else.

"So, how's the whole thing?"

Oh God, any subject but that!

Pretending to be struck by sudden deafness, Mike fingered the cell phone screen to fall on social networks. He is not really a fan of social networks, of this world where all people are perfect and happy, but to escape that question he would make that sacrifice.

Before he can really get lost in the virtual world and make unconsciousness true, Dustin takes the phone from his hand and hides it in a place that is completely out of his reach - into the waistband of his jeans, next to the Mike didn't want to and never wanted touch.

"I'm trying to change the subject," Dustin crooned softly, not really angry, but starting to get upset. "Can you help?"

He grunted as Dustin took the cell phone from his hands in a desperate attempt to gain Mike's attention.

"You're not going to leave me alone, are you? What do you want to know?"

"How are things going with her? With Eleven? Do you still think she's disturbed?"

"No. I think she's weird."

"Weird how? Weird of the scary type? Weird of the sort..."

"Weird of the incomprehensible kind. I don't understand her."

"Women are a mystery, my friend." Dustin patted Mike on the back. "But, you know, mysteries are always something interesting, a mystery with curls and eyes so beautiful, the most hypnotizing of all, if I were you, I would not give it up."

Dustin didn't understand the size of what he was talking about, not when his only living with Eleven in the last three weeks wasn't for a few minutes in the same room and a quick, yet always present, first look of recognition, glance at her clothes - which ranged from wide tops and training pants to more romanticized hippy-looking outfits.

But Mike had already had enough time and acquaintance to wonder why Eleven was there with them, involved in Kali's plan. She was someone visibly socially structured, far from being in the same pit that he and Dustin were, had never even mentioned the name of Martin Brenner or demonstrated any kind of hatred for him. It was as if she ignored the existence of that life-destroying idiot.

It was strange, and it didn't help at all in the slight suspicion that rose behind his mind. What was she doing there, besides being unwillingly obeying Kali's orders?

"Wants to know?" Dustin takes the cell phone from Mike's hand. "Time to stalk the beautiful woman with brown curls."

Some quick moves from his hacker's fingers, Dustin unlocks Mike’s cell phone and begins to travel through the beautiful world full of smiles from Mike's Instagram.

"Come on! Are not you even following her?" His curl friend is exalted a little. "Finish! Here's her profile, by the way, you're following now."

"Why did you do that?!"

"Because I'm your best friend. You're welcome, by the way."

He got his cell phone back from his best friend.

Curiosity to know more about Eleven's life was there, hammering inside his head in the last few weeks, mostly fueled by her silence when asked about something personal, but Mike had resolved not to stalk her life, to respect the silence she respected when it was on his side - but that positioning was only worth so far, when the social network of primary use for disclosures of personal photos was there, in his hands and asking to be looked at. The temptation was too much to bear.

The first photo of Eleven's personal page is not her, or at least not her these days. It's a snapshot of an old snapshot where two preteens hug two smiling children. A tall straight-haired boy who falls over his eyes hugs a small boy with green eyes while, beside them, a blonde girl wraps her arms around a little girl with cute brown curls. There are no subtitles in the photo, just four red hearts.

The next one is a colorful amateur video with grunge filter that shows a moment compiled from Eleven, now big, smiling and making funny faces to the camera. But it's not exactly the video that truly attracts Mike's attention and, yes, the picture next to him. Eleven, dressed in a luxurious, low-cut dark blue dress, posing as a model before a very well-lit water fountain. She looked like a real spoiled little girl, especially by the serious expression on her beautifully made face.

"Wow!" Dustin exhales beside him in wonder. Mike can not help but wonder, too. "She looks like a goddess."

_ "Thanks, dude. That night was so amazing." _

As if the cell phone had become a very slippery bar of soap, Mike tries not to knock down the device he had recently bought, frightened by the silent arrival of Eleven Hopper. She had this damn craze to scare others by announcing her presence before she had not noticed.

Eleven stands before them, shining with sweat, dressed in leggings and a black top that accentuates her silhouette. She had evidently been working out.

"Stalkers don't let themselves be caught, you know?" Eleven says without showing anger at what she found they doing. "By the way, you guys are terrible stalkers. Give it up, kittens."

Maybe it's her easygoing tone, the way she drags the word "kittens" or... Anything like that, the important thing is that he gets completely flushed, wanting more than ever to stick his head to the ground.

Why did he have to listen to Dustin?

"We weren't stalking you."

"Mike was, I was just being mate." Dustin flashes repeatedly to Eleven, a smile on his lips that to Mike looks cynical. "You're really photogenic."

She gives a flourish to Dustin's compliment.

"You know how to treat a woman, Dustin Henderson." Her eyes fall on Mike. "You should have learned from him, Wheeler. You have not praised me once since we met."

"Only get my compliments who deserve it."

Mike's mind and mouth have a direct connection, and it is not uncommon for any thought to pass through his mind and immediately escape through the lips to the world. This has already got him into a lot of trouble over the course of his life, and Mike late realizes he just did it again.

The answer wasn't deliberate, no revenge for the words exchanged between them on the first day they met. It was probably just a consequence of his anger after talking to Karen Wheeler. This, however, didn't diminish the fact that that answer had been horrible in every way possible.

But if it was expected that it wilted with that answer, that's not what happens. Mike doesn't know if he is impressed or frightened by the way she stands up and builds an ice mask in front of what he said.

"My mistake. I didn't mean it, I swear ..."

"Swears are just camouflaged lies." She cuts him off. "We have to do some things together. Be waiting for me in the lobby in thirty minutes."

Of course, he knew what nonsense said would not go off so easily, with a simple "My mistake!", But still, it is disappointing when Eleven marches away from them without stopping in herself any trace of good humor.

Dustin punched him on the shoulder, looking disappointed in what he had just witnessed.

"You're an idiot? How could you say that? You practically spoke in her face that you found she ugly. You practically spoke in the face of the most beautiful woman in the world that .. Argh! I don't even want to think about it. She is almost a model, a short model, but still almost a model of Victoria’s Secrets and you do it!"

"No, I didn't say that and you know full well that I don't..."

"What, Mike, what do I know very well? Can you be an asshole with anyone you know?" He said with a terrifying wave of fury. "Yeah, I know that I'm your friend, Mike, but sometimes I... Argh, I don't even have words for this!"

"What?!"

"I will not tell you anything! You are intelligent, you will end up realizing."

Thinking about the technicality of the whole thing, Eleven had no right to be annoyed at Mike's for his fucking accidental comment - it wasn't as if the comments she had made when they had met and had been the kindest of all face of the earth. Still, on the technical side of the thing, she had apologized for the ironic comments and had been trying to be somebody else... Cordial.

Yes, right, he'd gotten ugly by picking on her, even if not on purpose, the anger his mother had forced him to feel, but that would occasionally happen, would not it?

It was inevitable that the two would fight. One of the various implicit laws in nature was that a person of strong genius could not live peacefully with another person of equally strong genius for a long time without tension and sparks being generated until the peak of spontaneous combustion - and that was what would happen soon if he didn't try to apologize to her. Mike wasn't as stupid as Dustin had said, and he was determined not to let both of them look bad for such nonsense.

_ ‘Cause, yes, compared to what would lead them to an explosion of strong geniuses, screams, and insults, what he had done was just nonsense of a brat. Mistrust was like a plague in many relationships, destroying them until they failed, nothing left over, and it would not be any different with them. _

Apologizing to someone would never be an easy task - letting go of pride and talking out loud - but Mike was willing to try that. Or at least he thought he was willing to do it until Eleven appeared in the lobby and stared at him as if to pulverize him.

"Listen, I didn't mean to offend you, okay?" Started dumping it before she could say anything. "I didn't mean it, I swear... I mean, I was angry, not you, but I ended up cashing you in. I didn't mean to say that."

She arches eyebrows at him, petulant - unconvinced by the apology.

"I don't need your compliments to think I'm beautiful, Wheeler. No woman needs it.” Eleven frowns at him disapprovingly. "Your outfit sucks! You need to replace it immediately."

_ So the ice queen was back, huh? _

He looked at himself, incredulous at what she had just said with such apathy. His clothes weren't bad, weren't they. Jeans, all-star, flannel and a jacket to protect him from the cold. Of course, he wasn't wearing Calvin Klein, but he wasn't bad either.

"My clothes look great, thank you."

"No, they are not." She snaps her fingers into his face, scaring him. "At least not for what we're going to do."

"And what are we going to do, Your Highness?"

"We're going to recognize ground. Let's look at Martin Brenner more closely."

It distances Mike a little from his concerns that he has hurt Eleven's feelings or the small irritation that begins to settle inside him since the unprincipled fingers snap at his face.

They were going to act, they would finally do something real, concrete, and that could contribute to ending that hell life.

"So..."

"So, kitten, everyone's stupid polished where we're going. Rich people. You're going, need to get out of these clothes." Eleven rolls her eyes at him, more impatient than usual. "It's going to attract attention and that's all we don't need. We don't want to ruin the plan, don't we?"

He followed Eleven out of the building, noting how her steps were cadenced. Had she had some kind of training to have that motor coordination?

"Are we just going to watch?" He asked anxiously. "Are not we going to do anything?"

"To your disappointment, yes, that's all." She informs him stopping in front of a 2009 model car. Not so fancy for a person like her. "If it were up to me, I would not even notice."

The people who had come into Mike's life didn't usually give him much time to think about things and with her, it was no different. Before he could begin to think about what she had just said, Eleven tossed over his T-shirt, black jeans, and a beige synthetic leather jacket.

"Where do I change?

"In the middle of the street? In the car? Whatever." Eleven shrugs, getting into the car to assume her driver's seat. "Your choice."

He felt his face turn red.

"Do you want me to change clothes on the street? In front of you?"

"Oh, it's not like I've never seen a man half naked in front of me, kitten. I've seen several times."

As irritation deepens inside him, Mike repeats to himself that it's just because she's making him change clothes in the middle of the street and not because of what she just said about the guys she'd already seen half-naked.

Grunting, he shifted in the middle of the bloody street, praying that none of Kali's idiots or anyone else would come to see it happening. If anyone saw that, even Dustin included, they would never leave him alone.

"Ready!" He snorted into the car, tossing over her the only piece of clothing he'd chosen not to wear and getting his own clothes on. "I'm not taking my pants off in the middle of the street. That goes against my ideals."

"So full of timidity, some women thought it cute," Eleven says starting the car, without looking even though he's sitting right next to her. "But I appreciate you not wearing his pants. He would not like that."

This time Mike's mind has a great timing of connection with the doubt that arises and his mouth.

"Who the hell are you talking about?"

"About my date, one night crush or whatever you want to call it?" She looks at him with her eyes wide with false innocence. "These clothes are his. He forgot at my house when we... You know what we did."

Mike's mind blazes with what she has just said, a sudden wave of disgust rising through his stomach and almost turning into something more disgusting that could spread through the car.

Was he wearing the clothes of another guy, the guy she'd probably taken to bed last night? Clothes in which the guy had probably sweated long before discarding them and had hardly been washed? Disgusting! The maximum level of rust. Disturbed, he began to pull the jacket off the other guy, movements more awkward than normal.

"And then women who are dramatic." She laughs without looking, focused on keeping the car on the track. "Relax, kitten. It's my brothers' clothes. The jacket belongs to one and the shirt belongs to the other."

Mike stops forcing his arm out of the jacket sleeve, incredulous.

"That didn't have fun, Hopper!"

"I have to disagree with you, handsome. It was hilarious." She laughed blatantly, leaning in to turn on the radio. "You have to take life less seriously."

"I thought it was revenge?! For the unfortunate comment I’ve made?"

"What?! You think I'm angry?"

Eleven tilts her head back, laughing, almost knocking the car into someone's car. Terrified and without the slightest desire to die, Mike takes the wheel until she has recovered from her laughter.

"Do you think I'm ugly? Right! What matters is how I see myself, what I think about myself." She accelerates the car, surpassing the maximum speed of the track. "And, handsome, I think I'm fucking beautiful. Self-esteem is everything in this society full of idiots who think they are beauty experts."

Swallowed. Why had everyone assumed he thought El Hopper ugly? He would not think that even if he was blind. She was beautiful with those brown curls and confidence in herself. The most beautiful of all the women Mike had ever had the pleasure of seeing.

And perhaps the fact that his thoughts occasionally led him to her - brown curls that seemed to be extremely soft, full lips that drew him, skin as soft as a peach, perfume - meant something he wasn't willing to accept.

The rest of the trip is filled with a silence swelled only by Eleven singing along with the random music playing on the radio, neither of them seem willing to say anything. Well, he was willing to say something, the silence had always bothered him, but what could he say?

"We're here," Eleven announces parking blatantly in front of Mike's old job across the street. didn't they have to be more subtle? "Now, here's a script: we're not going to do anything, just watch."

"What if someone comes here? If they try to talk to us?"

"Improvise. Improvise is something that always happens."

Mike thought that would be cooler, like James Bond or something, but he ended up being as massive as being in the building watching over the monitors - which, by the way, after so much watching, he knew he was out of sight. More silence comes, this time without any music to fill it.

There were a lot of questions inside Mike's head, questions that could cut the ice, but he had not really bought the story of Eleven not being angry.

"Are you sure you're not angry?" She nods absently, tapping her fingers on the window. Why didn't her car have black glass? It was easier, wasn't it? "Alright then... But are you sure, really?"

"I'm not retarded, handsome. I can tell what I feel and I'm definitely not angry." Eleven finely looks at him. "Do you want proof? Okay. Do you have someone to help you get your daughter's guard back? I suppose you're trying to get her back, don't you?"

"I am... But I don't have a lawyer."

_ I don't have the money to play one that wants to defend my case _ , he added mentally.

"So now you're going to have the best lawyer in the world." She rummaged through the belongings and handed him a business card. "Call her, you will not regret it."

Sarah Hopper, lawyer, said the visiting card. 2964-5579.

He narrowed his eyes at the woman's name, more specifically at the last name.

"Sarah Hopper? Is it your mother?"

"My mother? Nah! I never knew my mother, she died in childbirth." Eleven speaks with more detachment than is due. Would Liv ever talk about her mother that way? "This is my big sister, my real sister."

"Yes, right, ‘cause are your other brothers fake." He scoffed at the card. He would surely call that woman. "

"Adoptive siblings are the right word here. Children of my stepmother, two boys. They've messed up my puberty a lot, you know, chasing guys and not letting me get drunk until I'm in college.

She exclaimed loudly when she finally managed to associate what she had just said with the photo he saw on her Instagram earlier. The two teenagers and two children with no more than three years old. Eleven and her three brothers - two adoptees and one of blood. A surprisingly large family, much larger than his.

The funny thing about the whole thing was that the two boys in the picture, now stopping to think it over, seemed extremely familiar to him. But it was impossible that he knew them, could he? World wasn't so small.

All the lightness he felt before, despite his fear of Eleven's rage and his reasoning about his brothers, vanished as he saw the white-haired man standing before the company from which he had been expelled and labeled a useless thief. Brenner. He was there, across the street, so close to Mike and easy to get punched in the face Damn, all he wanted to do was punch that idiot jerk in the face right now.

He clenched his fists tightly. Why could not he punch the idiot's face? No one had said he could not punch his face. I mean, it would not hurt anyone...

"don't do that." Eleven interrupts his torrent of thoughts, almost as if he could read the mental crossroads he was in. "It will not help much than get you to prison again, handsome. Hitting a rich man is never a good thing."

"What do you suggest I do?" He pointed at Brenner, missing the fact that he was looking more closely at the car they were in. "May I stay here and watch?"

"Yeah? Duh! That's what you came for... Shit!"

With a six-second delay that really makes a difference at that moment, Mike notices that Brenner is now a moving target - moving in the direction they were, glassy blue eyes clearly focused on the car they were in.

"Is he coming here?" He squirmed in a panic. The plan wasn't for Brenner to pick them up in a car.

"It seems so, Mike."

"And now?"

"It's time for improvisation. It's just improvisation, nothing too much."

The impending arrival of Martin Psychotic Brenner torments Mike to the point of not noticing Eleven letting go of her seatbelt. With a mastery that would envy anyone, Eleven crawls into her lap and sits there, legs wrapping him tightly while her arms do the same thing on the neck.

Brenner is almost in front of their car when Mike, for the first time since Liv was taken from him, forgets him. Why does Mike forget about him? Well, Eleven's kissing him. Soft lips pressed harshly against his, prompting him to dance to the music she was dictating at that moment and damn he could not say he didn't want to follow what she was dictating to be done.

Entering the game of Eleven, he allowed himself to rest one hand on her waist, the other flying behind her head, fingers burrowing into her curls which, incidentally, were as soft as he'd thought. She reacts to it, lips becoming more insistent against his - the kiss deepening than it already was.

That was just to fool Brenner into ignoring him, but Mike had to admit she was kissing well. Very well. He moaned softly, a sound coming from the back of his throat as Eleven's lips moved away from him, ending the kiss.

"Did we get it?" She peers at him with dark eyes, swollen lips. "Is he still around?"

He leaned a little to the side, checking both to look at the view from the window and the rearview mirror. No sign of Brenner. (Not that he would notice, not with Eleven there in front of him, disheveled and panting.

"He evaporated."

"You know why we did it, right? People like him have aversion to any show of affection, so of course, he would not be watching us."

"Yes, of course, it didn't mean anything." They laughed together, something not very natural or relaxed. "By the way, you kiss very well."

"No news. Everyone who kisses me says that."

Why was she still on his lap? Why... He was enjoying it so much? These were difficult questions that his mind didn't seem to be ready to answer.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the grammatical and semantic errors you encounter while reading. I know they're boring and I'm trying to improve. I am still learning English and translating what I write in my language into the English language is kind of a way to improve this learning.  
> I'm sorry if this bothers you or makes you feel offended. Your help and patience are always welcome.


	5. When the city sleeps the unbelievable can happen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike meets Sarah Hopper. There's an incident at the nightclub where Mike and Dustin work. Mike and El decide to take advantage of the magnetism that drives them to one another - without compromise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A week for Stranger Things 3, my loves, how's the expectation? I'm almost going crazy, dammit! Every time someone says a date near me I'm like, "Is it really? But next Thursday is July 4th and July 4th is a very special day!"
> 
> Man, I'm very soft with the scene of Max and El at the mall, learning to walk in high heels and spoiling the life of that annoying girl who rejected Dustin in the snow ball. I was left out of me. And what about the scene of Will dressed Will, The Wise? A mix of "Oh my God, how cute!" and pity for the boys not wanting to play with him.

## 

"I don't want to give you false hopes, but..."

"But...?" He leaned over the freshly cleaned counter, anxious.

"But the great news I have can leave you like this. I've already filed in the papers for Olivia's custody petition and things look pretty promising to me, Mike."

He imagined that anyone who saw him at that moment, with a huge silly smile on his lips, would take him for one more among the various drunks that existed there in the nightclub. The prospect of this sort of gaze directed at him usually bothered him, but not this time, not today - not when Sarah Hopper was helping him get Liv's guard back.

It wasn't as if all the problems of his life had been solved (Brenner was still unpunished, then, not at all definitely), but the main one, the one who disturbed him most, was on his way to be solved and that was all that was needed for 70% of Mike's moodiness dissolve into nothing. And all thanks to Sarah Hopper.

Perhaps from watching her sister's steady nose transmute into intransigence from the moment she started to graduate in law, Mike had begun to assume that everyone in the business had that same unpalatable personality, never going through his head that was just Nancy's thing, just the spoiled little girl's personality ending her putrefaction and rising to a new stage. But now that he had someone to compare with, Mike knew very well that this was it. That’s the truth.

Sarah Hopper was like those lawyers who only existed on television - friendly, trustworthy and strangely understanding _(almost as if she had already suffered terrible atrocities caused by lawlessness on her skin)_. And, of course, like these actresses who played television lawyers, she was beautiful. Blond hair, blue eyes, tall and really lovely. Very beautiful, but she did not stimulate in him any kind of feeling beyond pure gratitude. Not that it was the case, but after growing up surrounded by blondes who smelled of expensive wine and perfume, or had a steep nose, or just happy and toothless little girls, Mike had gained a certain favor in the brunettes.

_ A very specific type of brunettes, irritable and a little mysterious, curls that created life at each of her confident steps. Curly hair and brown eyes, addictive pink lips, humor of easy variation, funny and ironic answers. It almost seemed like he had someone in mind with these characteristics. _

"Promise?!" He exclaimed excitedly, his voice protruding from the music coming from the loudspeakers of the club. "Oh, and how do you know that? Any sixth sense of law?"

"You sounded like my little sister, she kept saying that after I graduated." She laughs, mentioning El with such unpretentiousness that she hardly seems to be talking about the same El as Mike knows. "But I think what gave me this tip was the answer from the court for our application and also the face of your sister when she called me by Skype."

Knowing that Sarah had talked to Nancy did not bring good vibes to him. Nancy had a great trick, won everyone easily, so who could assure him that she no longer loved Sarah?

"Did you talk to my parents' lawyer? She... did she seem nervous, angry?" He inquired, aware that he was sounding like a frightened little child.

"I talked and I loved doing it," Sarah confirms playing with her untouched drink. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone so angry in my entire life. It looked like she was going to have an aneurysm."

He let out a sigh of relief. Nancy would never fail to affect him, to turn his self into a frightened child.

"And what she said?"

"Uh..." Sarah wrinkles her nose, something that causes a strange resemblance between her and El. "She first asked if it was true, She asked if I'm really ahead of the defense of your daughter's custody request. Then she, uh, started mocking your initiative."

He rolled her eyes. Seeing her hesitation, it was clear that Nancy had not been restricted only to basic jesting.

"She cursed me, did not she? Did she call me some stupid nickname? Nerd, silly, frog face or adopted fool?”

"Yeah, actually, something I did not quite understand until I found out her last name. Wheeler, huh?" Her tone indicates that she already has an idea, even if not yet certain, of how deep the relationship between the two is. "Are you cousins?"

"Brothers. She's my big sister."

"Is Nancy Wheeler your sister?" The surprise is evident. Had it not crossed her mind that Mike and Nancy could be brothers? "Ow! You mean... You guys are physically alike, eh?"

"No need to pretend it. I know I'm different from her, from my other sister too." He rubbed the back of his neck. "So the foolish thing adopted, for not liking them, my mother, or my father."

There was a time when he was about seven or eight years old when this dissimilarity had bothered him to the point where Mike thought seriously about painting his blond hair and wearing blue contact lenses just to silence questions about the truthfulness of kinship of him with the other members of his family, but over time Mike began to like himself more. What did it matter that he had no physical resemblance to his sisters, that people would often ask him if he was adopted? Mike had reached a point in his life where he thanked it for not inheriting anything from the genetics of his family - appearance or character.

Sarah rests a hand on his shoulder with a sympathetic smile.

"I also went through this, mainly because my little sister looked more like our foster brothers than with me." She grabs, pulling her hand away from his body as if the mention of her sister had not happened. "Oh, and one last thing before we go to the boring part of the conversation: the judge has decreed that you have the right, and nothing can stop you from visiting your daughter on scheduled weekends."

He felt himself gasping, excitement returning and striking him in the same way as when the world was simpler and his joys were restricted to finding a rare HQ.

The excitement that Mike felt now wasn't even greater because those visits were just that. Visits. Nothing definite yet, but still good enough to make him happy.

"Really?" He lifted his chin, trying to see Dustin in the crowd of drunks at the nightclub. He would be so happy with the news. "Can I see my daughter?"

"You can, as long as your visits are scheduled and don't interfere with her school routine. If you want, I can schedule a visit for the next weekend, but..."

Both shrinks as the beats of music reverberating through the nightclub become louder and uncomfortable for theirs. That was definitely not the best environment for a conversation like that.

"It's very noisy here, is it? But then? What do you think? Want to schedule a visit to this weekend?"

"Of course I want to! I'm going to see my daughter and I'll still see the disgusting face of my parents? The best thing possible!"

Sarah nods, braided blond hair shining under the colorful lights of the nightclub. Although clearly dressed to integrate with the crowd, her upright, confident posture and other details made it clear that this wasn't and would never be her place.

"I'm glad it made you happy, I think it's a relief for what I'm going to tell you now." She moves, seemingly uncomfortable on the bench she was sitting on. "The point here is that in order to get Olivia's custody you will have to make more than a formal request to the juvenile court."

"Anything to get my daughter back." He bore his chest, confident. There wasn'thing Mike wasn't willing to do to get Liv back. Anything was small, insignificant compared to the love and longing he felt for her. Liv was his everything.

"There are facilitating attitudes that would influence the choice of the judge, which would demonstrate to him that you not only love your daughter but also have the stability to take care of her."

Unconsciously, Mike stands upright, alert.

He knew very well what the word stability meant; he knew it wasn't bad, but the way Sarah was pronouncing it seemed to be a bad thing.

"Can you be more clear on these things that could help, please?" He asked, squeezing the end of the table until his knuckles turned white.

"Well... Not that I'm talking badly about your work, about your lifestyle, but they aren't elements that contribute much to the judge's decision."

He ran his hand through his hair, not completely disconsolate as it had crossed his mind several times. Living with Liv in his current apartment was something Mike had already repudiated in his mind alone, in the middle of the night - his little girl deserved more than living behind a nightclub, than sleeping with the electronic noise through the walls of the apartment.

"So I'm going to have to leave my apartment and my job?" He questioned for confirmation. "I can try, I guess. I don't guarantee anything."

Sarah's blue eyes peer at him with companionship and understanding, but still looking uncomfortable.

"And... You know, judges tend to see potential legal guardians as people who have a stable life in every way. Socially, monetarily and... In a serious relationship."

He began to cough loudly, choking on the bile that had magically crept up his throat.

"Serious relationship?" He repeated in disbelief. "Am I going to have to get married or something like this to get my daughter back?"

Being in a serious relationship with someone to the point of building a loving relationship had never once been in Mike's mind since Liv had been born and especially now.

Sarah blushes under the lights of the nightclub, seeming to want to run to hide behind the drunken crowd, uncomfortable with what she had just said and his reaction.

"The judge would see your affectionate relationship, which would preferably be a serious date to the point of engagement, as something good." She tries to justify quickly. "We are in the 21st century, Michael, but the world is still retrograde and single parents are still seen with evil eyes. Not well accepted. In your case, it would be the question of you being a man and taking care of a little girl alone."

"Just because I'm a man do people doubt that I can take care of my daughter alone?"

"Unfortunately, yes, not that I doubt you. I know well that parents have as much ability as mothers to care for their children, it's just that-" Sarah sighed, looking regretful."It's always like that with single men raising their children alone, especially when their children are little girls. This is how it happened to me, Eleven and our father.”

Closed his eyes tightly, hoping this was a lie. How the hell would he get a girlfriend overnight? It wasn't like the girls were falling on him, dammit!

And there is no way to stop the information given by Sarah that she and El are daughters of a single father impregnates in the back of his mind like old chewing gum. This information is important enough for a mental note, even why at no time did she mention her other siblings. Was El lying when she said she had foster brothers?

"You can ask your friend to pretend to be your girlfriend/ ** _fiancée_**." Sarah suggests looking guilty. "Or you can get a real girlfriend. It would be very helpful to show that you are mature enough to have a loving relationship, that you are thinking of giving Olivia a mother."

"So I'm going to have to lie to the judge saying I'm engaged to someone for him believe that I'm mature?" He asked with wide eyes. Dude, he really did not want to do that. “Sounds contradictory.”

"It's not mandatory, nothing is mandatory, but it would be a good collaborative measure."

The loud screaming sound is what saves him from humiliation by telling Sarah that he has no friends close enough to pretend to be his girlfriend, but it's also what keeps him alert. After working as a bartender for so many months, Mike knows that when screams of that sort, made to excel at electronic music, it was because something really bad was happening - usually, a serious fight to the point of involving someone bleeding. And who had to try to separate the fight? He and Dustin. It was this or have an even lower salary.

Apologizing to Sarah for the interruption, Mike approaches the noisy crowd even though his instincts are asking him to do the opposite. Can not be anything besides an overjoyed drunk, can?

He found Dustin in the midst of the drunken, usually enlightened countenance completely obscured by the strongest sense of anger Mike had ever been able to glimpse in his friend's face. He was separating two not-so-cheerful drunks struggling to reach each other - not just two drunks, but two drunks who evidently had A) money and B) had a long-standing brawl. Great! It was deeper than he'd imagined.

He rested a hand on his best friend's shoulder, making a mental note of laughing later at Dustin's exaggerated reaction to startle with his arrival.

_ That was how he reacted when El decided to play the ghost and came out of nowhere? Well, if that was so, with the same expression as Dustin, now he was beginning to understand her rations. _

"What is going on?"

"Just the usual. Idiots who find it interesting to fill their faces and start fighting." I hate those assholes." He grunts loudly pushing one of the idiots. "A little help here, yes?"

He rehearsed the two drunks. An idiot in a plaid t-shirt with haircalf lick and another idiot wearing an expensive and wet polo shirt.

"Aww ... wouldn't you rather let them kill themselves?"

"Dude?!" Dustin squeaks loudly as if someone has kicked the low parts. "Mike, will you help me or...?!"

"All right, you crybaby, I'll help you!" He looked at the idiot whose hair was gelled and pulled him away from Dustin. "HEY, HEY, HEY! HERE'S THE FUCK OF A NIGHTCLUB AND NOT A FIGHT RING, don't YOU KNOW THE DIFFERENCE?"

Unhappy with the increase in distance between him and the other drunk, the idiot of the gel tries to break free from Mike by punching him in awkward movements that could not hurt anyone.

"Let go of me, you moron!"

"I just will let you go, if you calm down, you jerk!" He tightened the grip on the drunk's arm in the face of his efforts to let go. "What the hell do you think you're doing, fuck?"

"I'm trying to kick the ass of that shit, but if you want the same to happen to you, that's okay for me." Another clumsy punch from which Mike can turn away. "Ow, keep quiet!"

"Yeah! I'll be quiet for you to hit me, you bet." He mumbled evilly, words he had often wished to speak to Troy Harrington when he was twelve.

"My father will know that you're treating me like this, like somebody else." The idiot who's with Mike complains, confirming his assumptions. Just a daddy's little boy.

Ignoring the threats of the rich asshole, Mike guides him out of the nightclub. He thinks of his daughter as he does this, how horrified she would be when she saw him doing it - seeing anyone doing it. Liv was sweet, easily horrified.

 _"don't do this, Dad!"_ She would exclaim to him, little hands around his waist.

He pushed the asshole out of the nightclub, threw him successfully into the gutter. Dude, when he used to go to college parties - a big breakthrough for him - shortly before Liv, there weren't as many bratty assholes as they did in the nightclub. What? After Liv's birth did the wind blow up?

"Tell this to your father, asshole!" He growled, bringing his hand to his head to realize that, after all, the idiot had managed to hit him with a punch good enough to cut off the top of his eyebrow.

He's watching the drunk guy grunting curses, trying to get up from the gutter where was thrown, as the screams from inside the nightclub become higher for who’s outside. There isn't a delay of even thirty seconds for a small crowd to form 13% of the nightclub occupants to run through the doors.

It's hard to understand what people are talking about, their voices mingling as they run over him, but Mike thinks he can understand something like "broke a bottle" and "is threatening." These two loose sentences, that he's not even sure if they are true, alarm him and urge him to run back into the nightclub, mind fixed on his best friend.

Mike feels himself getting sick, stomach agitated with what he finds upon returning to what he supposes still to be the point that gave rise to the rush he has been wrapped up outside. Dustin is still there, at the exact point he was left, but unlike the last time Mike saw him, He's not in so good condition anymore.

Dustin's shirt has a crescent-shaped red spot that Mike immediately associates with being the fault of the broken drink bottle that the drunk guy of minutes ago, the only one left, has at hand. The drunk guy, hanging from side to side with difficulty to stand, seems satisfied with what he did. What the hell?! Did he leave for a moment and then a jerk sucks everything?

Recognizing the look of those who still have unfinished business, Mike advances to the drunken jerk and tries to take the glass from his hands. Nobody helps him. Dustin is moaning behind, grunting his name in pain and there is no sign of the nightclub owner or one of the two security guards working there. He’s alone to deal with an aggressive drunk, armed and then with the bloody best friend.

"All right, man, why don't you put that bottle down, eh?" He put his hands in front of his body as he approached slowly. "We can talk..."

"As if I wanted to talk to the..." The drunk's eyes narrow with cunning. "Bartender, you look like a bartender."

"What's the problem with being a bartender?"

"You're a servant, just like him." He pointed to Dustin with the broken bottle. "And just like him, you deserv..."

He grabbed the broken bottle-carrying hand, trying to bend it to the floor. However, the drunk is stronger and reluctant than expected, trying to push Mike away and hit the same bottle on him.

Mike backed away, pulling away awkwardly from every tentative blow of the man. The sedentary lifestyle is starting to get its best from him, leaving him panting, as Mike glimpses Steve, the nightclub's owner, sneaking up on the drunk guy.

"Come on, man, you don't want to do this…”

"don't talk to me like I'm your friend! And, yes, I want."

Steve grabs the drunk from behind and Mike takes advantage of this moment of forced stillness to get the bottle used by him as a weapon.

“You don't have the right to do this to me! Do you know who I am?! Do you know who’s my father?"

"Oh man, this stupid story again?" Steve moans loudly in disgust, unkempt tuft. "If I made money every time fuckin 'asses as you asked me if I know whose children they are I would be rich."

Mike turns his mind off the argument between his boss and the troublemaker and focuses totally on his bloody best friend. With a pale face dyed solely by the bright colors that illuminated the nightclub, wide eyes and open mouth, Dustin holds his belly in both hands.

As if he was as drunk as the two stupid brats, Dustin staggers to him.

"Mike..." He chokes, pulling his hands away from himself enough for his best friend to see the damage. "Do you think it's too bad, the kind bad that will make me die?

He glanced down at the wound. Jesus! It was big and had a lot of blood, but not deep enough to make Dustin leave the living world and become a ghost.

"I think it’s the kind of thing going to give you a ride in the emergency room at the nearest hospital." He supported Dustin. "What do you think about this?"

"Crap." Dustin groans sadly as Mike wraps his arms around him. "I hate hospitals."

"I know you hate it, buddy."

"I hate those drunks, those motherfuckers. All of them."

"Dustin..."

"I hate that job. If I was behind my computer, being the nerd that I am, none of this would have happened."

Driving Dustin through the curious crowd to the car isn't an easy job and will definitely not be on Mike's list of favorite things to do, but he does it successfully and ends up putting his friend in the front seat, where he can monitor him.

The way to the hospital would stay forever in Mike's mind. Dustin's aching groans, the occasional whining, cursing, and of course checking to see how much blood he had lost (not much, if someone asked Mike - it just seemed to be a larger amount than it was because of the color of his t-shirt).

"Hey, we're here, okay? We're at the hospital, man." G asped, getting out of the car and trying to make Dustin follow his example.

Dustin makes a noise that is half laughing, half moaning.

"Do you know what that means? That I can get high with painkillers and that no police officer will be able to arrest me because... I'll be high with licit drugs."

"Dude, you're not going to get high."

"I hope you're wrong, just getting high to forget this pain." Dustin lets out a loud grunt as they reach the hospital desk and, consequently, startled a group of nurses standing there in their pause. "FUCK, THAT HURTS!"

"Okay, man, let's find a way to stop the pain."

_ “Swear?! I never thought about it. In fact, we're going to stay here, just talking about my pain while I SLOWLY DIE!” _

One of the nurses exclaims, alarmed at the blood stain on Dustin's T-shirt, and that's all it takes for a squad of people wearing hospital clothes to attack them and take Dustin for a more in-depth assessment of the doctor on duty. Mike thinks he'll end up alone in the waiting room when one of the nurses comes back and points a finger at him.

"You," she says suddenly, startling him. "Come on, follow me to the healing room. We need to take care of that."

Mike frowned at her, not pleased at all.

"I don't need a bandage. Look, it wasn'thing..." His voice dies, devoid of reason to his point, as he pushes his hand away from his forehead and finds fresh blood there.

"You said?"

Mike rolled his eyes at the woman's superior tone.

"That I will accompany you to the healing room."

"Good boy."

Grumbling about being called a "boy" by a nurse who did not appear to be ten years older than he, Mike follows her through the hospital corridors to the healing room. It's a place away from the reception, far enough for the incoming patients not to see the patients who were there before with deeper lesions.

There is no one in the healing room, at least no one sick. There's only one curly-haired nurse packing antiseptics, gauzes, bandages, and a few medications on a table while gently humming along with her glowing cell phone in the distance.

_ Would you still call me baby? _

_ And if I told you everything _

_ Would you call me crazy? _

_ Cause baby I'm a dark star, dark star, ohh _

"Men fall at your feet and you cast them as if they weren'thing, so why does all this drama in the form of music, honey?" The nurse who guided Mike questions interrupting the singer nurse.

When he hears the voice of that singer nurse, Mike only thinks of one thing:  _ the universe only could be playing with him. _

"Can not I enjoy romantic songs, Vicky? Is it forbidden now?" She mocks her cell phone, without turning around.

"Of course not, Mrs. I-don’t-want-to-be-with-anyone. Here, I have an easy patient for you, just a quick bandage and it’s all okay. He's companion to the next one to come here."

Mike alternates the look between the two nurses. Why was it sounding like nurse 01 was about to leave him with **her**?

"I think I can handle that, Vicky." She speaks indifferently, busy again with the gauzes. "You can go rest if you want."

"I've been here since seven o'clock yesterday so, of course, I do. Of course. Good luck, girl."

"So, what do we have here... Oh, hey, handsome."

Eleven's brown eyes widened slightly in shock when she finally turned around and Mike senses that he kind of is her male and bloody reflection as he does the same thing.

Who would have thought, huh? El Hopper was a nurse. Mike could never see that coming or think about it alone.

It was the first time they'd seen each other ever since the kiss - El has somehow disappeared from the map in the last weeks when her sister had taken action for Mike's defense - and he had to admit that it definitely wasn't the way he imagined to reconnect with her - over there, in a hospital. Dressed in one of those blue Greys Anatomy clothes, so in clothes so different from her pretty and expensive robes.

_ Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. The most beautiful woman who ever stepped on earth,  _ his mind whispers non-stop.

"So you're my patient, aren't you?" She smiles, eyes becoming less wide-eyed when she points to a stretcher. "Sit down there, okay? I need you to be shorter than me to complete the cleaning process."

He obeyed in silence.

Their kiss had been just an improvisation, something completely devoid of those sweet sentiments reported by young girls and goodies of novels, but even so, for some reason, it had been haunting him in the last few weeks. It wasn't that kissing her had suddenly found him in love with her, full of feelings and other things. Not even (Gross!). It was probably just the sense of basic need that was rooted in every human being. God knows how long Mike had kissed no one, and it had ended being Eleven. Only that.

She comes up with her metal tray full of hospital supplies and Mike, instinctively, shrinks.

"What, baby boy, you're afraid it might hurt?" She laughs and then looks serious. "Or you're scared with me?"

"Why should I be scared of you? I have no reason."

"Try not to move, baby boy." She orders it professionally. "I need you to be calm, please."

Staying quiet is a kind of mission impossible for him, especially with the closeness that El's care is giving him. Mike tries not to focus on the sweet scent that slowly intoxicates him or her touch is light, efficient enough to not make him feel pain.

_ Damn, what is that woman doing to him? _ He thought, closing his eyes and moaning as a bundle of pain passed through him.

"aren't you going to ask why I'm here at the hospital?"

El chuckles softly, her breath going against his forehead.

"I suppose there's been a fight at the nightclub." There's a wet caress above his eyebrow that burns. "You got hurt in the process. How's Dusty?"

"A mouthbreather struck a broken bottle on his belly."

"Wow, that's probably going to get him an ugly scar. I'll take care of him later. Don’t worry, I’m a good nurse."

She continues to do her job, buzzing absentmindedly.

“But he's not like that because he fought with someone. Not at all. Dustin never fought much. I was always the stubborn one, who insisted on fighting back the bullies, which always made me get home with a black eye. Dustin was trying to separate two drunks fight and that happened.” He chattered, his eyes still closed. “Your sister was there. I followed your advice and now sHe's helping me to take back my daughter's care. She's a lovely person. And if you're wondering, she's fine; did not get hurt during the whole thing. I actually lost sight of her when I went help Dustin. Did something happen to her...? "

"Handsome" El interrupts, fingers passing one last time over the space above his eyebrow. "Did you hit your head during this fight?"

"Hmm? No."

"Then why are you acting so strange?" Her fingers crawl from where they were positioned until they were caressing his cheek. "You're not very open with your personal stuff, so only a concussion would explain that opening of yours."

Mike opened his eyes immediately, compressed lips to prevent the torrent of words he wants to continue spurting out. El is face to face with him, nose so close to his that anyone, seeing from the wrong angle, would think they were kissing.

"Or..." She extends the little word, a mischievous smile on her lips.

"Or what?" He repeated, suddenly on the defensive.

"Or you're like that because we kissed. Is that it, baby boy?"

Mike laughs, the pride making him inflate his chest.

"Of course not, improvisation is improvisation."

"Good, because it was just improvisation." She shakes her head, tossing her hair back. "You kiss well, it was the best kiss I've had in years, I will not deny it, but..."

"You don’t want to be with anyone" He repeated the words of the nurse who had brought him there. "I don't want to be with anyone, either. Relationships are too exhausting." He paused. "And your kiss was also the best I've experienced in a long time."

A smile fluttering on El's red lips, leaning closer to him. Why was she doing this, and why did she do that to him?

"Do you want to try this taste a few more times?"

"Without commitment?" God, it wasn't him who was actually speaking, was he? He would never ask this so naturally if he had not been drunk with her presence. Who in their right mind would say that to such a beautiful woman?

"You can bet I'll never ask you about it. Promise.”

"So I don't have reasons to say 'no,' Hopper."

There's a teasing smile on El's lips as she leans up against a little more, enough to do away with any personal space that might exist and consequently start probing his lips with hers.

It's not a kiss, there is no touch involved, but It's maddening and makes him want to be all that isn't being. El's hands slide to rest on the back of his neck and, impelled by her act, Mike allows himself to rest his hands on her waist. It's thin, so extremely thin that it looks like it's about to crack (and also a great place to keep his hands flat). He can feel the warmth of her body, can feel her breath, can feel her perfume even more. He can feel everything too much.

He was going to end up kissing her, wasn't he? Fuck. He was going to kiss her, oh yes! At least that way he could heal that crazy thirst for human contact that came whenever El appeared before him.

_ Desire inflates his chest and makes him think of going far beyond that kiss, of being able to feel El's skin beyond the faint heat that escaped through her delicate clothes... _

It's she who kisses him. Or at least she would have taken the initiative to kiss him if  _ someone  _ did not interrupt them.

"Look, Mike, I'm in a wheelchair! It's like playing rickshaw, man!"

"Excuse? Am I disturbing anything? "

Eleven pulls away from him quickly, hands leaving his neck so she can pay attention to the two newcomers. Mike also lets his hands fall from her waist, a small part of him feeding on disappointment.

Relief spreads through all the nerves of Mike's body when he sees Dustin, smiling, pale, with slightly opaque eyes, sitting in a wheelchair at the door of the room. Alive. Without any trace of pain. Behind Dustin is an aristocratic-looking, sandy-haired nurse, who stares at both, Mike and El, with obvious displeasure at his red face.

"You always disturb, Cox, your presence is unpleasant.” The last words are directed at Dustin, who, smiling, raises both arms up like a happy child. “Hey, Dusty. They stitched you?”

"Yes!" He exclaims and then shifts his attention to Mike. "Man, I'm going to have a scar on my belly. I heard that girls love scars."

"We love, Dusty. We think that it's totally badass." El confirms taking the wheelchair guide and moving it completely into the environment. "Go on, Cox. I think I can take care of a newly sutured patient, thank you very much."

And Mike can confirm that, yes, El knows how to take care of a newly sutured patient. She takes all the care that seems to be needed with Dustin's wound, making occasional humorous remarks to distract him whenever He's too interested in her work.

"Did they give you anesthesia, Dusty? This wound seems too deep not to have anesthesia here."

"Anesthesia, and many remedies,” Dustin comments with malicious joy. "They got me high, Mike. You were wrong."

"Sorry, man?"

"I'm not upset with you, Mike, even because I'm on a totally tubular vibe now."

He laughed at the anesthesia and remedies that made Dustin dig up that old, decadent expression from school days. Even without knowing the meaning of it, Eleven also laughs, giving him a quick glance full of promises of future and uncompromising kisses.

"Yes, Dustin." He smiled back at El. "Totally tubular."

##    
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the grammatical and semantic errors you encounter while reading. I know they're boring and I'm trying to improve. I am still learning English and translating what I write in my language into the English language is kind of a way to improve this learning.
> 
> I'm sorry if this bothers you or makes you feel offended. Your help and patience are always welcome.


	6. Bruised heart, hardened heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kali implants uncertainties and insecurities within Mike's already paranoid mind.
> 
> After a failed meeting with his daughter, Mike decides to adopt a less passive and more aggressive stance (which may or may not harm him).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heey,
> 
> How many broken hearts out here? Many? Oh God, my heart has been so broken since the end of season 3 that I could not even hear a sad song (which I always loved) without starting to cry. What end was that? It was like Avengers: Endgame, you know? Sad, but epic. Too crazy.
> 
> What did you guys think of Mileven this season? I found it cute to see them together, all in love. Mileven remains steady and strong, baby.
> 
> Enjoy the chapter ❤❤❤

Realizing that Brenner was not going to show up that morning, Mike focused his attention on the newspaper he'd bought as soon as the first rays of sun rose in the sky.

Since he grew up having his father cut off from the newly printed sheets sold by the day laborer, Mike hated reading newspapers and even smelling them close to him. But, desperate circumstances call for desperate measures and, man, he was really desperate for a new job and a new apartment. Although obsolete and bringing unwelcome memories to his ego, the newspaper's rankings were still the best option for him.

He chewed on the pen's lid while, twisting his fate to look for it, circulated at least five ads of classified - three jobs and two cheap apartments, but which were located in neighborhoods safe enough for the rate of violence not to rely in casual conversations about who was or was not robbed or stabbed in the last week.

The first job advertisement was to be an attendant at one of Scoops Ahoy's ice cream parlors, the second was to be an assistant at the municipal library, and the last job post offered vacancies as a helper at a flower shop. It was nothing in his area, far from it, but... The payment was good to give the judge of the childhood sticks the image of someone stable. The apartments of the classifieds, at first glance by the photos, were not their things, but... But compared to the apartment in which he lived today were almost British castles.

The problem was not the compensation or the conditions under which any of the apartments were - the point here was to be accepted. People generally did not like to give jobs or rent apartments for ex-offenders.

"What are you reading, baby boy?"

Mike, who was sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him, leaning on a neighboring table, jumps up and almost falls from his chair. He manages to recover quickly, not allowing himself to fall and neither allowing the casters of the chair but not fast enough for Eleven not to realize that not what just happened.

"I think you were reading something about murders or something."

"Actually, I was looking at the classifieds." He commented trying to maintain a casual posture, pretending he had not nearly kissed the ground. "Looking for a job and an apartment."

"Oh, yes, good idea. How's Dusty, by the way?"

Eleven circulates the chair in which Mike is now decently seated to lean lazily on the table - consequently covering up the sight of the computer and the white-haired man who had come up there without either of them noticing.

On her face, in her body expression and even in her manner of speaking there is no trace of her remembering what happened between them in the hospital about four days ago. As if amnesia or a big eraser had erased it from her memory. Unlike him, she was great at separating things - work, revenge, staff, and... Whatever was starting to happen between them.

Damn, that's why he did not want to be related to anyone! He was the biggest jerk when it came to separating the staff from the professional and at one time or another he would fuck what was going on between him and Eleven. It was not right to get caught up with her, it was not right to feed this strange misshapen thing that grew inside him.

But... But now it was too late. If only they had stayed only in the kiss that had happened in the car, in the small, hot, improvised kiss. But not! No, they had to have advanced to... The tense, delicious approach that had taken place in the hospital. They had not even kissed and it was enough to make Mike crazy. That still disconcerted him in a surprising way.

"Constantly crying like a baby. But, you know, certainly better." He told her, scratching the back of his neck. "Dustin is the essence of all human exaggeration, I'm sure."

Eleven laughs, head tilting back slightly and giving him a tantalizing glimpse of her neck.

"Why am I not surprised?" She pretends to be thoughtful for 5 or 6 seconds. "Oh yes, because you men are extremely weak for any physical pain."

"Hello? What the hell is this? I totally disagree.”

"C’ mon, let's agree that for some reason we’re women who feel colic every month."

Uncomfortable with the development of the subject solely related to the women, Mike tries not to be shaken before Eleven.

"So...? That does not mean anything."

"You men are physiologically unprepared compared to women." She throws her hair confidently. "You guys are strong, yes, but what's going on? You could not stand for a minute feeling colic or experiencing birth pangs."

"Oh, and you're an expert on that subject, are not you?"

"I’ve studied anatomy in college, baby boy, so I think I can throb about something like that."

Mike snorted, mocking. He knows that the probability of her being right is very high, that the probability of him being wrong is even higher, but why think about it when he can be exchanging taunts with her?

"I'll prove you wrong, Eleven."

"How?" Eleven asks and then laughs out loud with some kind of mental realization she has. "Oh, wait, are you going to get pregnant?! That would be amazing, Wheeler.”

"What?" He looked at her with such forcible innocence that he was laughable. " _Is not it physiologically correct?_ "

In a movement as fluid as that of a singer of a professional dancer, Eleven abandons her support at the table and passes through him. Mike briefly believes she's leaving, that she'll leave him there alone with the computer - which, not that it matters at the moment, is showing Martin Brenner talking to a few guys in suits. This belief is cast aside when the hot breath of someone standing behind him begins to be felt by him. She definitely has not left him alone yet.

"What do you think, baby boy?" With a low voice, she whispers against his ear.

Feeling so close to Eleven made him slow, like an old computer about to go to the computers heaven. Mike has to take a deep breath to be able to restart his brain and reconnect all the wires of the neurons.

"I guess I'll prove you wrong."

"Really?" She laughs, although her mocking tone is now much more inclined to the tone of someone who flirts.

He gasped in surprise when Eleven, even with almost minimal force, rested both hands on his shoulders to rotate the chair in which he was sitting. The abrupt change of vision is completely welcome, mainly because it makes him extremely close to Eleven's face. Nose almost touching nose.

"I think I'd love to see you prove it." She whispers again, this time even lower than the last time. "What method are you going to use to prove this?"

"State secret. I'll just show you later."

Mike's answer was much more elaborate than the one that comes out of his mouth, much more elaborate and humorous, but who can judge him by eventually forgetting what he was going to say? Mike challenged anyone to be there in his place, in front of Eleven Hopper, and manage to keep his wit at a level superior to a sixty percent percentage. It was simply impossible.

Eleven's smile shows her self-awareness - she clearly knew it was affecting him and she was enjoying it.

"So what, Wheeler?" She asks looking deep in his eyes.

"What?"

"What do you think, genius?" She laughs to herself as she repeats those words, shaking her head.

Not surprisingly, it is she who initiates their kiss.

A noise of contentment escapes through Mike's lips as her lips collide with his. Without gentleness, without any kind of calm; just needed. It is the kind of kiss that a goddess would give in a mortal in antique Greece - quick so that no other god sees the moment of weakness, delicious, but not even a tenth of its full potential. It was as if she... She was controlling herself so she would not let go completely; as if he were trying not to surrender to what was happening.

Well, if they were to make out occasionally, it was clear that Mike wanted her completely. He was there completely, and he wanted her in the same way.

He moved away from Eleven's lips, watching with amusement as his big eyes locked in disbelief.

"What the hell, Mike...?"

The first thing he does, to have greater closeness between them - and also to do what he wants - is to pull Eleven's body to himself. She falls on him, hands flat on his shoulder so she can have a minimum of stability.

Mike's lips connect with her neck making her mute immediately and then gently choking on his gesture. It is the first reaction he feels to be true and delivered from her. He slid his lips over El’s pulse-point, across the length of her slender neck, only stopping to make a small ministration of attention to a point where later a dark mark would surely appear.

Mike can hear Eleven mumbling over him, murmuring something about not doing it.

"I can’t have hickeys.” She gasps, nails buried in the fabric of his T-shirt. "The hospital .. Reputation... What kind of nurse has a hickey?"

"A happy nurse? My sister used to wear make-up to hide hickeys." He murmured in response, lips still in action.

"I do not have time... For any kind of makeup on a dai..."

Reluctantly, he stopped what he was doing. She had a point, after all. Despite having asked him to stop, Eleven let out a small disappointed groan when Mike obeyed her. Without giving the opportunity to catch his breath, she pulls him back to her, her lips meeting his in the process.

This time it is she who dominates the kiss - hands running down his face, caressing his hair and occasionally pulling them as if they were the reins of a runaway carriage. Mike melts against her, breathing hard, but determined not to be the one to surrender.

It's still Eleven who's mastering their kiss when a furious thud echoed through the room. The two separate immediately - El jumping to her feet and getting ready and Mike... Mike just trying to be located in what universe he was. The torpor of the kiss only passes completely when Kali enters his field of vision.

"I wonder why, only now, through Robin's gossip, did I know Henderson was stabbed?"

"I, uh..."

With wide eyes, Mike watches Kali begin to move from one room to the other, completely ignoring his delayed argument to fall into her own ramblings. That's why Mike had not told her anything; for feeling that she would have had such an exaggerated reaction when, in fact, it was all an unfortunate incident.

He looked at Eleven for help and found her tidying her hair carefully, trying to get the traces of their make out. After a few minutes of trying to sort herself out, she takes the phone out of her pocket and lifts up before her face as she tilts her neck to the side. Mike does not know if she can see in the tiny mirrored screen of the cell phone, but on her neck, even after she strictly says she did not want marks, there is a tiny red spot in progress for darker colors.

Eleven hits a slap on his arm when she notices the stain - strong enough to make it clear that he was irritated, but that too would relieve.

"What part of ‘I can’t have hickeys”, did not you understand?" She scowls softly.

"I'm sorry..." He broke off, a mischievous smile appearing on his lips. Why was he apologizing? "Are you going to say you did not like it? That would be very cheeky.”

She shakes her head in denial, half-closed brown eyes sparkling with amusement.

"You're getting very bold, baby boy."

"I'm not getting bold, just... Showing who I am."

Eleven arches her eyebrow at him and lets out a series of giggles that eventually infect him. Mike does not realize how stupid and immature they are until Kali screams.

"CAN I KNOW WHY YOU TWO ARE LAUGHING? WE ARE IN THE MIDST OF A CRISIS!"

Mike's eyes widen again, even though a small irritation in his heart begins to sprout. He hated shouting at him, making him see red.

Eleven also does not seem very happy with Kali's cries. She folds her arms over her chest and stares at the other with undisguised disdain.

"Do not be dramatic, Kali. We are not in any crisis." She grabs herself, her back straightening.

"How come we're not going through any crisis, Eleven ?!" Kali turns her coldness all the way to Eleven. "You lost your head on one of your shifts at that idiot hospital? Our operation was compromised."

"Nothing was compromised here! It was an unfortunate incident what happened to Dustin!” Eleven snaps back, face turning red. "Now, keep talking to me in that tone that, I swear to you, you will never see me again in your life."

Eleven steps out of her neutral position, walking slowly to face Kali. Her chest is swollen, nose and chin raised in what is a clear challenge. She stands there, impassive, her expression completely blanks as she grabs Kali's icy gaze.

Mike feels that he is witnessing more than a mere convergence of opinion of two genius women - there is something else in what is happening ... As a kind of hurt that has long been unfolding between the two and that is only waiting for the moment sure to leave and make the destruction happen.

"Is there something you want to tell me, Eleven?" Kali hisses softly, voice echoing through the room only because of the acoustics. "You look kind of flustered."

"I'm getting tired of it, Kali."

"Swear? No one here is begging for your presence, isn’t?"

Eleven's jaw tightens.

"My patience is ending. A day, Kali... A day you will see me and will not like it."

This threat, somber but still with a slight touch of disappointment, is the last thing Eleven utters before leaving the room in hard, determined steps. She does not look back at any time, no sign of hesitation or regret in her slim body.

When Mike thinks Kali is after Eleven, so that she may apologize to her for the misunderstanding, she turns her black eyes to him. The obsidian orbs are darker than normal, more blackened with rage, and something even deeper than this first feeling. She is panting, like an animal that was running after her hunt, but that in the end eventually lost her.

Was taking revenge on Brenner really worth all this? Of course yes. Anything was valid and bearable if the final result was Martin Brenner rotting in a prison cell.

"Nothing is what it seems to be, Wheeler.” Kali begins to speak, though, she is not looking directly at him."You should know that as well as I. Who are you?" Just a mediocre thief who targeted a target too big and fucked up. Isn’t that?”

He clenched his fists, blood starting to focus excessively on his face - especially on the cheeks and ears.

"Who are you?" To Mike's complete hatred, she continues with the damn questioning. "Just an idiot nerd that at the first opportunity to spend the night with a real girl did what? Got her pregnant."

"What the hell..." He tried to interrupt, the evil genius mixed with anger rising rapidly to the brain.

"Who are you? A denatured father who does not know how to take care of your own daughter, who got into legal problems without caring about the consequences that would fall on your daughter..."

"THAT’S ENOUGH!"

Mike's scream echoes through the room, and perhaps, through the rest of the building.

No, he was wrong. Nothing was worth listening to these idiocies. Why be humiliated here, by this stranger, when anyone can insult you in this way? She had nothing special about herself to keep talking about him. She had no such right.

He rose from his chair, determined not to put his feet in the same room as that nasty woman. What had he to lose? Anything. He was already at the bottom of the pit, struggling to rebound. Getting out of this woman's scheme was the best thing he could do.

"I will not stay here listening to all this shit."

"What?" Kali Prasad mocks him as he tries to get past her. "So you really are all that I said?

"Of course I'm not!" He declared firmly, pausing to walk to point his finger at Kali. "And you know it!"

Using high cynicism, Kali raises her hands in yield.

"Calm down, Wheeler, yeah, I know it, but how? How do I know that? I know ‘cause I researched you, because I studied you, and I know you're not what you seem." She explains cunningly, the voice in a superior tone that was strangely familiar to Mike. "But that's how you're seen by other people. A little thief."

"Yeah, so what? I do not care how people see me."

"If that were true you would not be here, trying to overthrow Brenner to repair your social credit, but that's not the point at the moment." She dismisses the fact as if it were nothing. "What's up here is that you're not what you seem, what people think you are. A lot of people are not what they seem to be."

He frowned, confused. Where was that conversation going on?

"Not everyone is what they seem to be, and, if I were you, I'd be more careful about who you're in. The accident with your friend may not have been an accident."

"It was an accident."

"It may not have been. Brenner may have sent someone to stab your friend. I may have sent stabbing your friend. Eleven may have ordered it. Anyone. Many things appear to be and are not. Think about it.” Kali turns her back on him. "Think about the people you're relating to, investigate them, see if it's worth getting out of your focus, which is to regain your social dignity, in exchange for... You know what - Kisses and caresses of a woman you do not even know."

Kali pauses, if to make sure he's absorbed all the information or if to make suspense, Mike does not have a clue.

"You're free to decide if you still want to stay here with us. Keep that despite the show you gave here, Eleven will not leave. She will not leave here until kick Brenner’s ass"

Was she implying that Eleven was unreliable? That was it?

What fucking confusion had he gotten himself into?

***

 

He ran his hand through his hair for what seemed to be the twentieth time. They were ten minutes late, and since delays were not common in the ever polished, well-built Wheeler family, that could only mean that they stood him up. He would not be seeing Livvy. How had he not foreseen it? Of course, Nancy and their mother would try to boycott the judge's request.

Feeling distressed to hear Sarah arguing on her cell phone with Nancy, Mike walks away to breathe fresh air.

They are in the Hawkins Municipal Park, a large space filled with curious people who seem to have a frighteningly good memory as they stare at him as if they knew who he was. Mike did not doubt that they knew he was the Wheeler's thug son, the only thing that made him really uncomfortable here was to think about how they could recognize him since he had changed a lot since high school.

He fixed his eyes on his own hands when a woman who appears to be about the same age as he begins to face him blatantly. She's probably just an ex-schoolmate who's probably thinking 'Hey, it's the frog face! Should not he be in jail?'

Or... Or maybe she was someone from Brenner, someone who was monitoring him and passing information to... Damn! What the fuck?! A single conversation with Kali, a single conversation, and he was already paranoid. Great.

Still guided by the rhythm of paranoia, Mike immediately pulls away as a hand rests on his shoulder.

"Hey, Sarah, what are they...?" She swallowed, realizing that there was a big difference between Sarah Hopper and the person standing before him. "Who are you?"

The unknown face recoiled in the face of his reaction, hands in a position that Mike could now hold.

Mike could safely claim that he had never seen the smiling dude who was in front of him - brown hair combed into a thin, small tuft, hazel eyes staring intensely, pale angular face painted with few freckles. No one he'd ever bumped into in Hawkins, Chicago, or when he was walking the MIT corridors.

"Sorry to scare you, man." The man apologizes. He's not much older than Mike. "I just... I wanted to meet you. I've heard a lot about you."

"Really?" He snorted defensively, no interest in the bullshit. "Because I've heard nothing about you and I'm not very interested in heard now."

"Ah, come on, man! I know you're friendlier than that."

He looked at him laconically, without sketching any reaction or movement when the other hand reaches out politely to him.

"I wanted, I do not know, to introduce myself to you. Try to calm the moods between you and your sister." The guy goes on to suggest that he knows about Mike's personal problems. “Uh... My name is Jonathan Byers. I'm a photographer at the local mall and... Your sister's fiance."

The first thing that pops into Mike's mind is “No shit!” No shit this guy, Jonathan Byers, is Nancy's fiance. I mean, everyone had thought she was going to marry one of the bad boys in the city or end up totally independent of men, but either option, none of them mattered to him.

Nancy did not care. The existence of Nancy Wheeler did not matter. She was an unreliable traitor. And if this man was engaged to her, he was not trusted either.

"Yes, so what? I did not come to Hawkins to find out about this lady's personal life." He replied with disdain, holding up the cursing that came down to the tip of his tongue. "I came to see my daughter, where is she?"

"Look, I'm sorry about what happened between you and your family, between you and your sister." The man continues to speak as if Mike had never been rude. "I just... Nance is sad about this, you know? She's really sad and regretful."

There was nothing in the whole world that would keep him from laughing at that. Absolutely nothing. Nancy sorry? Funny, really funny.

"What kind of joke is this? Nancy Wheeler, your future wife, the great lawyer, the unique pride of the Wheeler family, sad and regretful? Good joke.” He spat the last part of the sentence. "She was very clear when she left me in jail. Very clear. Her sadness was very clear when she ignored me since I left that hell I should never have entered. That regretful? It's very clear as she tries to take my daughter away from me. Actually, it's very clear now, while she keeps me from seeing my daughter! "

"It’s not like that..." Jonathan tries to defend the bride, a classic lovebird.

"I do not know if my sister wanted to tell you, but I graduated with honors at MIT and that was not for nothing. I'm not stupid, I'm a rejected Wheeler, ignored, but I still know the Wheeler’s rules. Delays do not exist in the Wheeler family. Either you arrive punctually or you do not come. No Wheeler is late. Delays do not exist in the Wheeler family. Either you arrive on time or do not come. That's it. They do not come. They stood me up and did not even bother to give me a tattered excuse."

Jonathan Byers stands in guilty silence, Adam's apple rising and falling. Mike shakes his head, not surprisingly.

"They do not come, you're right to think that."

"Yeah, I already knew that. I never thought I was wrong."

He closed his eyes, thinking of all of Nancy's hesitations to him. Thinking of all the suggestions she had given about not caring about him.

Nancy humiliating him when he learned that he was going to be a father shortly before the beginning of his adult life. Nancy mocking the way he lived with Liv. Nancy leaving him in jail. Nancy did not believe him. Nancy helping their parents take Liv's guard...

 

* * *

 

_"I can not believe you were dumb enough to get a girl pregnant, Mikey!"_

_Young Mike watched his older sister tap her foot again and again on the floor, veins leaping out of her neck._ _This had definitely not been the reaction he expected from her._

_"It was a stupid mistake, I know..."_

_"What kind of stupid hormonal are you, Michael?! Just because the girls of Hawkins despised you on High School, you had to do that, to destroy your life with a... Baby?"_

_"A baby does not destroy anyone's life, Nancy."_

_"Do not you destroy it, Michael?! Do not you destroy it?! Are you mad or lost your mind when you were mating with that hormonal blonde ?!"_

_"Zoë no..."_

_When Nancy hits him Mike takes a few seconds to understand._ _It takes the use of all his neurons to understand that Nancy, his sister, the only person he trusted, had struck him._ _The sense of betrayal arose but was soon inhabited by understanding._ _She was right, was not she?_ _She was right to hit him._ _She had to be._ _Mike could not bear to think she'd done it for... For being like their parents._

 

* * *

 

 _He took Livvy in his arms, nestling close to her and pulling her away from Nancy's expensive clothes._ _For some reason, Nancy did not like being at least close to Livvy;_ _she said that the poor child would foul her, make her less dignified._ _Mike did not understand that she did not want to approach her niece, but everything was okay._ _It was her choice._

 _Nancy walks around the apartment, carefully judging every little detail._ _She ignores the babble of her niece, attentive blue eyes clinging to every bit of the house, except the baby in green robes trying to stretch toward her._

_"So... How are you and your child going? Are you managing to manage your life, work and still take care of this… Little monkey?"_

_He wrinkled his nose, displeased with the way Nancy referred to his daughter._

_"Uh... We're doing very well. You know her name, do not you?"_ _He asked, smiling a little when Nancy nodded._ _"Okay, so ... Want to hold her? Livvy's really interested in you."_

 _He waited for her sister to come up with a reaction that at least was worthy of some feeling._ _But not._ _She looks disgusted at the offer as if someone had asked Ted Wheeler to kiss her._

 _"Okay, right, you do not want to hold her and not approach her."_ _He counted, stroking Livvy's black hair._ _"What did you come here to do if you did not come to see your niece?"_

_"I came to check my brother. Dad and Mom asked me to come and check you. After all, why would I come here to see this... Little monkey? She does not do anything interesting besides eating, sleeping, and defecating in her diapers.”_

 

* * *

 

 

 _He paced the small cell he had faithfully believed he would only see through movies, which would never be behind them._ _Disconsolate, unable to look at Dustin for more than thirty seconds, Mike leans on the bars of the cell and tries to spy on something._

_Brenner, maybe?_

_His parents?_

_To Mike's momentary jubilation, he sees appear at the end of the hall, dressed in her finest executive suit, his sister._ _Nancy walks down the corridor like a model, parading along the catwalk without bothering her with hissing and revolting and hissing comments by the rest of the prisoners._

 _Mike's hope falls down some stairs when Nancy walks ahead of him._ _An impassive face, with no mercy or desperation, to see his younger brother there._

_"Nance..."_

_"HAVE YOU TRIED TO STEAL ONE OF CHICAGO'S GREATEST CEOS, MICHAEL WHEELER?"_ _She growls just the words Mike thought could never come out of her mouth._ _"What kind of idiot are you? What kind of idiot are you? YOU DON’T HAS MONEY, IS THAT? IT WAS DIFFICULT TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR SMALL BASTARD? FUCK, IDIOT!"_

_He recoiled away from the steel bars, wounded to a degree he still could not understand._

_"You really think I tried to divert money from Brenner? Nancy, I've never stolen anything in my life."_

_"My savings say the opposite."_

_His cheeks were hot._ _Was she still in pain over this?_ _It was a little childish nonsense._ _He had stolen money from her, a few pennies, because his parents had denied the request._ _Besides, the damn pennies had been restored._

 _"Nance, I swear to God, I did not steal anything."_ _He retorted desperately._ _"Alright, I'll prove it to you..."_

_"You do not have to prove me anything, Michael. You have to find a lawyer, that's all."_

_He gaped, puzzled._ _The phrase was self-explanatory, especially from a lawyer as his sister was, but Mike still did not want to believe it._

_"Nance, will not you get me out of here?"_

_"Why would I take a thief out of jail? If your case had a background of innocence, if the evidence was not all there, I would even try to defend you. But since that is not so, I will not leave my resume with a case lost as yours, my brother. "_

_The impact of the news, spoken quite explicitly this time, makes Mike stay frozen in place, unable to move a single muscle in the body._

_First comes incredulity._ _It could only be a joke._ _That could not be it._ _Nance, his sister, blood his blood, the blond girl who had helped him clean the bruises as the older and bigger kids hit him at school, was not doing it._ _She loved him as much as he loved her._ _It would maintain this implicit and silent rule that exists among siblings - the rule that one would defend the other, regardless of anything._

_Then the truth finally falls to him. No, it was not a joke; just as it had not been a joke when they put cuffs on him as if he were a serial killer. Nancy Wheeler had not been joking around since the day that Steve Harrington had broken her heart. No. She was serious - she would leave him there in jail, at the mercy of his own luck and the wrong judgment of other people. Nancy Wheeler, his relentless lawyer, his sister, was leaving him alone._

_The hurt comes when Mike realizes that Nancy was not only abandoning him but was also sure that he was guilty of everything. She, who had seen every little moment until the peak of his full development, was discredited in the credibility of the words he now spoke to defend himself._

_She believed he was guilty._

_Nancy arches her eyebrow at his silence, blue eyes glittering with some feeling that Mike could not identify which it was (that he did not care either)._

_"You want to tell me anything, Michael?"_

_He opened and closed his mouth, like a fish out of water. All that came into his mind at that moment were the words of the policeman who had arrested him. Everything you say can be used against you. She closed her mouth, lips closed. There was nothing more to say to Nancy Wheeler at that moment._

If at that time, when he was behind the bars, Mike would not say anything, he would not do it again.

He passed Jonathan Byers, heading for Sarah. She was arguing hotly on the phone, pausing as Mike and Jonathan Byers, who accompanied him, approached her.

"They're not coming, Mike." She says with an anguished smile. "I'm sorry. Hey, John."

He nodded, heart too broken to feel disappointed. Ignoring the friendly way Sarah communicated with Nancy's fiancé, he reached out for the blonde's phone. He needed to talk to Nancy, his mother or his father. Any of them would do.

_"...trying to convince her, but she's irreducible." Nancy talks on the other end of the line. "It was not intentional, it was intended to comply with the judge's order."_

He turned his back on Sarah and Nancy’s fiancee, not wanting them to see his face during the conversation with her.

"Cut the crap, agreed? Lies do not fit with you."

Nancy chokes, a guttural sound almost true enough to convince him.

_"Mikey? I'm not lying ..."_

"Do not try to fool me, I know you, I know you all, and I know you can do it.” He growled into the mouthpiece of the phone. "But guess what? It's not going to stop me, it's going to make me give in. I'm going to see my daughter. I'll have custody of her back."

_"Mike, little brother..."_

"Do not call me that, you do not have that right! I stopped being your brother when you left me in that fucking jail!"  He exclaimed aloud, lowering it only to say the end. "Now, send a warning to your dear parents: tell them I know their rottenness, I know the rottenness of all of you, I was being kind to you... Muggle is the right word, but anyway. I want to see my daughter. I demand to see her or you will not like anything I'm going to talk about."

Nancy cleared her throat at the other end of the line, taking on the voice of a lawyer.

_"Who would believe you?"_

"Who would not like to know that Karen Wheeler has supported a lover for almost 15 years? Everyone in Hawkins loves gossip, and I'd be particularly happy to spread it." He whispered to the phone, smiling as he imagined her sister's puzzled face. "Oh, and this is one of the little rotten ones I know. I know others, much bigger."

He smiled at the silence on the other side of the line.

"Have a good day, _dear sister._ Send a kiss to your parents." He paused in the provocative tone, returning to the normal tone. "Do not try to rip me off again, I guess you'll realize that I'm not the same idiot that you left in jail. Have a great day because, and I assure you, I will, sis."

Mike did not regret anything he had just said, he did not regret using his mother's lover as an asset. For his daughter, he could do anything, even begin to take on new attitudes and become a more radical person.

 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahn ... I'm sorry to say (or maybe not even that much), but from now on Mike is going to gain a rough look and even make a lot of mistakes and hurt a lot of people. Please, do not hate that teddy bear. Think about how much he has already suffered.
> 
> I'm sorry for the grammatical and semantic errors you encounter while reading. I know they're boring and I'm trying to improve. I am still learning English and translating what I write in my language into the English language is kind of a way to improve this learning.
> 
> I'm sorry if this bothers you or makes you feel offended. Your help and patience are always welcome.
> 
> Thanks for reading ❤❤❤


	7. Being the person the world demands

Mike gets a job at the neighborhood's public library. It's a nice place to work, organize books, and occasionally fix old computers there. It is also a place for him to organize his thoughts and that, without him noticing, does damage to him.

The silence of the public library opens space for thoughts to proliferate inside his mind. Not good thoughts. Bad thoughts and all turned completely to his mother.

It had been a week since the catastrophe of the (not) encounter with Liv in Hawkins. A week when the only answer to his threat was silence. Nancy and his mother had not taken his threats seriously. Too bad he wasn't bluffing about spreading the truth out there. He had waited for a week, waiting for a position that never comes and that shows him that it was time for him to position himself - time to spread the rotten Karen Wheeler.

 

He knows about the existence of Billy Hargrove since he was twelve years old. It's challenging not to notice a guy like Billy. Leather jacket, blond hair, blue eyes, obsessive smoker and owner of motorbikes so expensive that just by looking you could already feel the weight of the price in the bank account. If it weren't for these little features, Billy could also be recognized as the guy the Hawkins sheriff arrested twenty times or the guy chasing him at school. The kind of guy he'd always struggled to stay away from. Unlike his mother, by the way.

 

He is thirteen years old, almost fourteen when he learns that his mother has been having an extramarital affair with the city's bad boy. It happens when he's in the abandoned old iron, playing alone. His mother's car comes to the place and the first thing he thinks is, "Damn, I'm going to get grounded!" because she had already been told to him a thousand times that this place was too dirty to be frequented. Mike's horror comes when the first person out of the car is none other than Billy Hargrove. He opens the door of the car, helps Karen Wheeler, famous in the city for her wild berry marrow pie, and kisses her with savage ferocity. Mike's horror becomes deeper, multiplied about 300 times what it was originally.

He flees before he can see anything more traumatizing. Flee, but don't forget. Mike runs away, but he does occasionally check whether the affair between the two still exists - and, with the present expensive Karen data, of course, it still exists. He keeps this information until now - until he has a real reason to throw everything in the fan.

Mike doesn't want to do this, he doesn't want to be mean. But he knows that if he doesn't impose himself - if he doesn't show that he is serious, no one will give him what he wants.

"I still can't believe you threatened your mother, man!"

While arranging a stack of Shakespearean books, Mike looks out of the corner of his eye at his friend. Dustin, who is visiting for the first time Mike’s new work, looks at him with nothing less than the purest disgust.

Dustin didn't approve of Mike's taking a more aggressive stance.

"Get over it bro, it's been a week." Talking that last part brought a bitter taste to his mouth. Mike didn't like the fact that it had been so long.

"So you threatened your mother, the woman who gave you life, Mike." Dustin struggles not to squirm since they are still in a library. "How dare you?"

"You're acting like I've done something. I have not done anything yet."

"But you'll do if, until today, they don't give you what you want." The curly one said softly so that only Mike could hear it. "Why are you going to do this?"

He threaded the books, laughing to himself when Macbeth was the first of them. Mike picked up the book and began to leaf through it.

"Because I want to see my daughter, that's why I'm going to expose my mother's affair." He shrugged. "It’s my only choice."

"You know that's not your only choice."

He placed Macbeth next to the other books with a thud, his hand flat on the cover. The noise echoes through the library, something that would worry him if the old lady who hired him wasn't deaf.

"And what choice did I have, Dustin? Tell me! Talk civilly, ask to see my daughter? I think I tried to do that. I got tired, okay? I'm tired of being stepped on. I'm tired of not seeing my daughter. I'm tired of letting my daughter grow up in that toxic environment."

"You grew up there," Dustin remembers him.

"And it was shit. A childhood shit. A shit of adolescence. I never felt like belonging to that house. It was like I was an intruder."

He bit his tongue before too many words came out of his mouth. Certain things had to be kept forever.

Mike shudders internally as he remembers his father's coldness for whatever he did or his mother's indifference to anything that happens on her son. He didn't want Liv to continue being subjected to it, to grow up to become a fucking adult like him. Dustin knew that life at Wheeler's house, for Mike, had been shit; he just didn't know and wouldn't know the details.

"And what do you intend to do?" Dustin asks after a few seconds of silent contemplation. "I mean, how do you plan to do it."

"Internet, of course, just play on the internet and everything is ready."

"Hmmm? That, isn't it, like, crime?" He reminds him with a grimace. "Nancy can't have you arrested for disclosing unconfirmed information, slander, or just being threatening them?"

A lazy smile is born on Mike's lips.

"Since when is it a crime to publish an innocent landscape photo on facebook, a photo where accidentally appears a passionate couple kissing?”

Dustin pales a little, his face soon thereafter acquiring a strange shade of green.

"You have pictures?" This time it's too much for Dustin and he squirms, shock shining in his clear eyes. "Did you take pictures of your mother with her lover? When... How... why? That's a little sick, okay?"

"Argh, I didn't take pictures of my mother for pleasure." He grimaced at the thought that he knew had pierced his friend's mind. "And just so you know, I didn't premeditate anything. Just... The opportunity came. Just that."

"How do I know you're telling the truth? Since you started to relate with Kali you look like someone else."

Although there is a good deal of time to know about Dustin's not-so-positive opinion of Kali Prasad, it's the first time Mike hears this being verbalized and surprises him the amount of disgust in his best friend's voice.

Mike could not imagine that Dustin had such an aversion to Kali.

"The way you talk it seems like we're hanging out." He teased trying to break the ice.

"We both know that you're not hanging out with her," Dustin says dryly. "Or did you think I wouldn't realize what's going on?"

"What are you talking about?"

He knew what Dustin was talking about. It was impossible not to know.

"Eleven, your lawyer's sister." Dustin focuses the look on Mike's neck. "Or did you think I wouldn't notice?"

He drummed his fingers on the small stack of books he had been organizing, refusing to respond. They had not been exactly discreet about what was going on between them, wasn't it? Besides, there was no reason for discretion. It was no big deal. They only occasionally kissed (though Mike's needs demanded more than just kisses) to calm a third of the torrid desires that shook us.

If Dustin was watching, he would have noticed that Mike's behavioral change wasn't solely related to his parents and Nancy. This also included Eleven (and her red lips and slender curves). Mike had been avoiding her since the day of the argument between her and Kali, running away from her whenever he saw her in the hallways.

He knew that if he saw her, if he had direct contact with her, he would surrender to her charms and he didn't want to. Well, God knows how he wanted it, but not that way, not distrusting her.

From the last words of Kali, Mike had become suspicious of everything and everyone - El included in this mistrust. And if it had been she who had arranged for Dustin to be attacked that night? What if she had some direct connection with Brenner? What if she was working for Brenner and just waiting for the right moment to lure him into a trap that would take him back to prison?

The days he had spent in prison still tormented him every night. The food. The dangerous men who threatened him. The small cell in which he had been confined. The solitary one in which they threw it even without him doing anything. No. If El was a traitor, a mermaid who was trying to get him back to hell, he could not risk it.

But, in addition to suppositions founded solely on the paranoias implanted by Kali Prasad, what did he have? What if she was innocent and he was just wasting his time, missing the moments of positive distraction that the two of them could have together?

God, that stalemate would end up driving him crazy before Mike could get Martin Brenner what he deserved. This tiny woman with big brown eyes was a real mermaid. Distracting him from his focus, making him doubt everything, occasionally annoying him and still filling him with desire.

"Don't you want to talk about how you're falling for her?" Dustin insists on his silence. "Don't want to talk about how you..."

"It's nothing serious, Dustin." He muttered, taking the weight of the pile of books. "We just..."

"Just what, Mike? It doesn't suit you, whatever you’re going to say."

"And what suits me? To be passed on? To be used?" He walked a few steps with the books and then backed up to speak to his friend. "I was just trying to see Liv and I saw them together, I just took the photo... just in case to need it, and I need it now."

He left to hide among the shelves of the library, beginning to realize that perhaps soon they would become the best refuge for him.

He stuffed the books one by one on the shelves. Mike wasn't lying about not having premeditated his mother's picture with Billy. It was true. It had simply happened to Mike in one of his attempts to glimpse Liv, to see his mother entering a sporting goods store. Strangely, he had followed her to see what she intended to do there.

It was then strolling wildly among a few sporting aisles that Mike met with Karen Wheeler. Surprising and at the same time not even so surprising, she wasn't alone.

She was in Billy Hargrove's arms, kissing the man as if there was never tomorrow. It was Billy Hargrove. He was older, a little older than Mike remembered, but still sporting his rebellious blond hair.

Feeling a mixture of disgust and anger, Mike takes his cell phone out of his pocket and takes a picture. He wants this photo to, in the next discussion between the two, rub on Karen's face that she isn't the very good-natured person trying to show it to everyone. Mike wants to make it clear that she is no better than him and can no longer use that argument.

In the end, the photo would serve for this and much more.

When he returns to the library's reception desk Dustin is no longer there. There is only one ticket of high significance despite the few words.

**The wound was aching.**

**I went home.**

Mike waves positively, kneading the little paper and putting it in his pocket. The note meant that Dustin was angry, yes, but that he was still on Mike's side. They were like that. They argued, disagreed, but never separated. Best friends are like that, after all.

He is still rambling about his friendship with Dustin - his first good rambling in days - when a loud, rowdy exclamation echoes through the walls of the place, causing some few students standing there to look away from their books to look angrily at who was causing a disturbance in the peace that reigned there.

" _ Dad _ !"

Alarmed by both the familiar voice of a child and the disorder of peace she had caused, Mike turned his attention to himself before the entrance to the library.

Wearing a little black striped white dress and a caramel jacket that nearly swallows her completely, Liv runs to cover the distance from the entrance to the counter behind which Mike is stunned. She smiles openly, black hair flying behind her as her small feet come into action.

Forgetting completely to think about why Liv was there and who had taken her there, he walked around the service desk just in time to catch her daughter in her wild race. Now, ignoring the library user's glances, Mike grabs Liv in his arms and squeezes her so tightly that he seriously thinks he's doing some damage to the little girl's ribs.

After a few minutes are taken to appreciate what it was like to have the warmth of Liv's arms around his neck, Mike stepped aside to make a quick check on her daughter's face. Flushed cheeks, pink mouth smiling, eyes bright. Everything in order. No one had come near his daughter to hurt her.

"Hey, little one." He stroked the girl's cheek. "Not that I'm not happy to see you, but ... What are you doing here, sweetheart?"

"I came to see you, Dad," Liv responds happily. "I saw Uncle Dusty. He was walking funnily, with his hand on his belly."

He sighed. Of course, the proud Dustin was walking with his hand on his belly. It didn't hurt to have called Mike to help him.

"Uncle Dusty is, uh, sick."

Liv's large eyes widen.

"Uncle Dusty is sick?" She snorts looking annoyed. "I wanted to go talk to him, but Aunt Nancy wouldn't let me go."

"Auntie Nancy...?" He repeated feeling his bowels freeze. "What...?"

"Hey, little brother."

He looked up to realize that in his distraction he had not noticed Nancy's silent approach.

 

Nancy, casually dressed in jeans and an asymmetrical T-shirt, is too close for his taste. This closeness allows Mike to see how eager her blue eyes are. Uninterested in this fact, Mike turns his eyes to the man who accompanies him. Jonathan smiles amiably at him, looking like a student who is trying to please his teacher with a compliment or an apple.

Mike straightened his posture in front of his older sister, not wanting to show more weaknesses than necessary in front of her. Anything could be used against him.

"Hi." He spoke with his eyes toward Jonathan, refusing to pay attention to Nancy. "What are you guys doing here? Chicago isn't very close to Hawkins."

"Hmm... Nancy wanted to talk privately with you." Jonathan replies with an air of indecision. He doesn't seem to know how to act in the face of Mike's stance. "She also wanted to give you a chance to see Liv already the last one didn't happen as planned."

"It didn't happen at all, that's what you mean."

Nancy is restless.

"We're here cordially, Mike, if you could collaborate with us it would be really interesting."

"And what do you want with that cordiality?" He pressed Liv against him. "Yes, you may not know me, but I know you. I know your warmth isn't a mere occasion."

"Of course I know you, Mikey..."

"Don't use that crude nickname with me. Lawyers can't refer in this way to the accused in court."

Jonathan wraps his arms around Nancy, pale face casting grimaces of displeasure toward the one who was talking rudely to his beloved.

"I'm not here as a lawyer." She sighs. "I'm here to talk to you as your older sister. Could we do that, talk civilly in a place... More appropriate?"

Mike considered for a moment the proposal, the look of the students in the library burning his back and leaving Liv visibly uncomfortable.

"My lunchtime is thirty minutes from now."

"Fantastic!" Jonathan vibrates. Mike frowns at that. Why is he so interested in this?

"A quick conversation. I don't want to spend my lunch break talking to my dear sister."

"You will not regret."

 

 

* * *

 

Mike regrets the first minute he's alone with his older sister.

Nancy takes him to a place that is half an hour from his work. It isn't the place that Mike initially thought. It's not a place Mike has ever thought of entering before.

They are in a restaurant aimed at middle-class people or above the middle class. Organized at tables placed inside a glass window construction and at tables set up in the outdoor area, protected by many elegant umbrellas made handmade with straw.

Jonathan isn't at the table with them. With the excuse of going to find something for Liv eat, he goes inside the restaurant. How does Mike know it's an excuse? Besides the fact that the older man didn't lie very well, the menus were on the tables for when customers decide what they just wanted to call the waiter. There was no need to go inside the enclosure.

He shifted, uncomfortable with the way other customers looked at him. They seemed to know that this wasn't his place. Maybe it was the clothes? Surely it was the clothes. Who would go to a restaurant aimed at the middle/upper class wearing a hooded jacket, cheap chess t-shirt, and shabby all-star?

"You should dress better now that you're working in a decent place," Nancy says in an attempt to start a conversation.

"You called me here to give me fashion advice?" He closed his face even more. "What a waste of time."

"Why such an aggressive stance?"

"Swear you're asking me that question?" He laughed humorlessly. "Dude, don't do this, okay? Don't try to make yourself innocent by putting me as evil here."

"You've changed, Mike." Nancy insists. She leans over the table to emphasize his words. "My little brother wouldn't do blackmail to get what he wants."

Mike feels nothing but disgust when Nancy calls him "little brother." He feels like throwing up with how far she can go just to get what she wants. Yes, of course, because she isn't there to play the troubled older sister.

Imitating Nancy, he also leaned over the restaurant table. He wouldn't back down. The retreat was no longer an option in that game.

"Your little brother seems like a sucker people take advantage of." Mike smiled sideways, a cold feeling running through his veins. Was this how Kali felt when she smiled? "Your little brother rotted and wilted in jail."

He returned to a proper position.

Nancy remained frozen in place, mouth slightly open as she seemed to reflect on what she had just heard. Her lack of reaction causes Mike to have a bad idea. That could be a trick, wouldn't it? She could be recording while trying to get him to say something that would further jeopardize his character before a judge.

If Eleven was an unknown, Nancy Wheeler was a certainty.

"Mike..."

"Can you get to the point, Nancy?" He asked not very gently, impatiently. What was Nancy thinking, that this was a courtroom where she needed to do her show? "Let's just say I have more to do."

"I can help you."

Mike closes his eyes for a moment, savoring the taste that hearing those words has. What wouldn't he have given to hear those words some time ago? A few months ago?

He remembered being in jail, seeing Dustin depressed and himself falling into this depression, wishing his sister would come to visit him, to give him some news. He also remembered the disappointment of leaving the jail for good behavior and seeing that there was no one waiting for him outside. Nancy had not cared for Mike since he was 15 when she left Hawkins for college - and maybe and she never really cared for him before that, maybe before it was just a bunch of... Lies of coexistence. Their parents were experts at these lies, why wouldn't Nancy be?

Mike opened his eyes again, untouched by this change in posture. Nancy Wheeler didn't change her posture so easily. If she was there it was because she had some purpose in mind. Emotion and sentimentality weren't with her.

"Help me with...? I'm fine."

"We both know you aren't," Nancy replies with a slightly mocking tone. "I mean... You got a better job, yes, but you still live in that apartment trash, and your behavior is seriously frightening me, a psychologist or a psychiatrist wouldn't do you any harm."

"As I already said," he said quietly, eyes wandering inside the restaurant to check on his daughter. "I'm fine, I don't need your help, I've got someone to help me."

From a distance, Liv seems very close to Jonathan. She smiles, in his arms, when she takes a pot of what Mike supposes to be ice cream. Despite the lack of similarity, people probably thought Liv was Jonathan's daughter. Mike wanted to be him to be there, holding her, proudly showing everyone that he, yes, was the father of that laughing little thing.

"Who are you talking about? Your lawyer, Sarah Hopper?" Nancy laughs, now clearly disdainful. "Spare me. She may be good, but she's not your family."

"She's from my girlfriend's family!" He answered quickly, praying internally so Eleven would never know that. She could have two reactions: laugh or be angry with him. You never knew things with El. "Almost my family."

That makes Nancy shut up, her mouth wide open revealing her perfect, white, toothy arch. Oh, she didn't think Mike could have rebuilt his life (which was right, but she would never know that).

"Not that this is the case, but I'm thinking of asking her to get engaged. What do you think?"

"I think you're bluffing."

"What the hell is that, sis?" He laughed softly, avoiding drawing the attention of the other customers. "You look irritated."

"I'm your family. Mom and Dad are your real family." She coughs. "This supposed fiancée or her sister isn't yet your family. Today your family is ..."

"Is now divided into three people, and 50 percent of that family is there." He pointed blindly at the restaurant to illustrate that he was talking about his daughter. "25 percent is Holly and the other 25 percent is Dustin."

"I'm also your sister, your sister in blood."

He clenched his fists.

"The bloodshot didn't mean anything when you left me in that jail when you discredited my words." He swallowed. "You're not my sister anymore."

Probably something in the sunlight, but Mike sees his sister's blue eyes shine with what appears to be torn about to spill.

Nonsense.

Nancy wouldn't cry over such a thing. She was as cold as her father and resilient as their mother. Besides, why would she cry over it? It wasn't like she cared about him.

"You have to understand that the evidence was all disfavoring." It emits what appears to be a whining whine.

"And are they not disadvantaging me anymore?" He shook his head. "Nancy, I don't know where you want to go with this, but it's nothing to do with my well-being."

Liv and Jonathan, he considers as Nancy grimaces in front of him, they should be back at the table. Jonatha was probably winding up to give Nancy and Mike time for a personal dialogue.

"That's not you, Mikey, it's not, my brother isn't like that." She emits what appears to be a hiccup. "My brother wouldn't take committing photos of our mother to blackmail her."

Bingo! Here was the point of that whole situation. Nancy was probably with her cell phone, recording their conversation, hoping he'd confess to having a picture of their mother and threatening her with it.

Well, Mike wasn't stupid. He wasn't going to fall for this little game.

"It's not going to roll, Nancy." He mumbled, feeling his cell phone vibrate in the pocket of his jeans. "I will not fall for this."

"What are you talking about?"

"I will not fuck myself this time, dear sister."

He took the cell phone out of his pocket, stuffing it back there when he saw the name on the screen. Eleven No. Using her name, pretending she was his fiancé didn't change the fact that he was still avoiding her.

When Mike looks back at Nancy, her face is surprisingly stained with tears. There are no tears, just their trail.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Why is everyone asking me this?" He shook his head in disbelief. "But I'll answer, okay? I'm doing this because I want my daughter back. Everything I do in my life is for my daughter, just for her."

_ "Dad, look at the ice cream that Uncle Jonathan bought for me!" _

He turned his head just in time to see Liv fleeing the safety of Jonathan's company to approach their table.

With a contagious smile, she takes the seat next to him, hands carefully holding a little pot that contained a green pasty. It makes Mike frown, confusion turning his brain into porridge.

That in his daughter's hand was vanilla ice cream?

"Livvy, baby, what have you got there?" He pointed to the object.

The girl hesitates. Everyone hesitates.

"Vanilla ice cream." His daughter responds innocently.

"Yeah, Mike, it's just ice cream," Nancy spoke, voice hoarse from the tears she was supposed to be spilling. "Don't act like it's poison..."

Nancy is silent when Mike glares at her, furious. He could not believe this was happening.

"It turns out to be poison to her, yes." He snapped angrily. "Liv is allergic to vanilla, just as I am."

"It can't be. I mean..." Jonathan chokes, his face pale with what he has just heard. He doesn't seem too happy about the possibility of giving Mike's daughter something to which she was allergic. "Mrs. Wheeler would never give vanilla ice cream to her granddaughter knowing the girl is allergic. That's why she constantly gives Olivia vanilla ice cream."

Gently, he took the ice cream from his daughter's hands and set it away from her.

"She didn't even know what I, her son was allergic to imagine just knowing about my daughter's allergies." He checked his daughter for a moment, questioning quietly if she had tasted the ice cream and smiling when she received a 'no' reply. "Don't eat it anymore, okay, sweetheart? It makes you hurt and we both don't want Liv to hurt."

"When I said that my stomach was hurting Grandma didn't believe," Liv tells him through a sly whinny. "She sent me to kindergarten."

"Maybe Mom was right," Nancy says trying to get around the situation. "Maybe Olivia isn't allergic..."

Choosing not to pay attention to what his older sister is talking about (because if he hears it, he'll lose control), Mike picks up his daughter and sits her on his lap. The girl comes willingly, apparently unaware of her father's repressed anger.

"Does your tummy hurt every time you take ice cream of that type, sweetheart?" He asked, stroking her hair.

"Yes, Dad." She pauses, pondering. "Sometimes I put out the food. Aunt Holly doesn't like me to have vanilla ice cream."

"That's because Aunt Holly is smart." Mike clutched his daughter protectively. "Just... Don't take Mayan vanilla ice cream, okay? Can you do that for me?"

"Yes, Dad."

Reluctantly, he looked at Nancy and her supposed fiance. God, she made him angry. It annoyed him the way she'd been trying to imply that he knew nothing about his daughter, that he didn't know about his daughter's illnesses.

Argh!

What irritated him most about it all was that the pretext they were using to keep Liv in Hawkins was that they took good care of her, that they cared for her with care and with things he could never give her. But then? If they'd looked after Liv so well why they'd allowed her to eat something allergic? Mike had never done this since her daughter's birth, he had never subjected Liv to stomach pains for sheer carelessness.

The hair on the back of Mike's neck rises when the possibility of not being an oversight arises among his thousands of thoughts. Even though he knew of his allergy, even though knowing that eating anything with vanilla would make him bad, his mother would give him. As soon as Liv was born he had told her that his daughter was also allergic to vanilla. Had she forgotten that fact or... Or was she purposely giving those to Mike's daughter?

Whether it was purposeful or not, it made it more than clear that Mike was right in fighting to get Liv back. She wasn't getting the supposed good treatment they insisted on. They were hurting his daughter.

"My daughter could have died, you know that, right?" He asked rhetorically. "This carelessness, failure, maltreatment, or whatever you want to call it, could have killed my daughter, the luck here is that her allergy isn't strong.

"Dude..." Jonathan tries to speak what sounds to Mike's ears as an excuse. He doesn't want Jonathan's apologies. He doesn't care about Jonathan's existence. His focus is Nancy.

"Mikey... I didn't know, Mom certainly didn't know ..."

He massaged his temples with the hand that wasn't holding Liv. Was Nancy really having that nerve?

"Karen knew, you knew, or at least you should know that I already told you about it with the two of you. You would know if you paid any attention to what came out of my mouth." Mike took a deep breath, trying not to get out of control. Damn, they'd almost poisoned his daughter! "And don't call me 'Mikey' anymore, I told you that you don't have that right, especially now that I know what you're doing to my daughter."

"It wasn't intentional..."

" _ It doesn't matter. It hurt my daughter and that's the point." _

__

Nancy sits up, her posture growing more upright as she abandoned her silence and prepared to attack. She usually won the argument (hey, she did advocacy in college), but not today, not when it came to Mike's daughter.

"She's not bleeding, so I guess it doesn't make any injuries, Michael." She retorted, adhering to her position as a lawyer.

That makes him laugh scornfully.

"Does this mean that when your child is burning with fever, having an asthma attack or vomiting you'll not take care of him because he'll not have any blood?" He snorted in disbelief. "Congratulations, you're going to be a great Mom."

"Listen here, Michael..."

"Listen, you! If I could, my daughter wouldn't step on Hawkins any more, she would stay with me." He narrowed his eyes wishing that no trace of his anger was missing at that moment, that Nancy was detecting everything. "But I can't. Now, what I can and will do is take her custody again fairly. I'll take my daughter back and she'll never in her life ever step on that house, she'll never step on Hawkins again. "

He drew air into his lungs, his face impassive.

"One tip: tell your mother never to discredit my daughter again when she says she is in pain. Unlike her, my girl isn't a liar."

"Or what?"

"You know very well what was going on.”

He focused all his attention on his daughter, kissing the top of her head carefully. Nancy didn't understand him. Jonathan didn't understand. Maybe the people who could understand him were his parents, but they certainly didn't - those people didn't know what good parents did.

Throughout his life, Mike was rejected. Rejected by his mother and father, his older sister, the girls. For all. Of course, Dustin and Holly didn't reject him now, but they didn't accept him either. It had taken Dustin some time to get close to him and allow the friendship to come and Holly... Well, Holly had to realize how cold her parents were to appeal to him, the only brother who was willing to pay attention to her.

But with Liv everything was different. Mike's daughter truly accepted him, she loved him just as he loved her and that was all for him. It was enough to make him willing to do anything for her - from blackmailing Karen Wheeler to... to the furthest, darkest request she could get from Kali Prasad against Martin Brenner. God, yes, he was ready to fall headlong into Kali's plans and fuck Brenner's life, ready to sink into the world of revenge, in the end, to get back everything he had lost.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry for the grammatical and semantic errors you encounter while reading. I know they're boring and I'm trying to improve. I am still learning English and translating what I write in my language into the English language is kind of a way to improve this learning.  
> I'm sorry if this bothers you or makes you feel offended. Your help and patience is always welcome.


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